SPANISH MACHINE TOOLS, TRUST IS OUR BEST TOOL

Spain is the third largest manufacturer of machine tools in the European Union. This is the best demonstration of the extremely high level of trust our customers place in Spanish Machine Tools. A trust that has succeeded in Spanish machine tools playing a very important role in the most relevant industrial sectors of the economy: automotive, aeronautics and aerospace, energy generation, railways, capital goods, dies and moulds or electrical appliances, amongst others.

Spanish machine tools offer a series of big competitive advantages amongst which the following can be highlighted: great flexibility to adapt products to each customer's, sector's and application's specific needs, a better relationship between productivity and return on investments, a wide and complete range of more than 2,000 models, and a strong bet for technology innovation, devoting as average a 6% of the total turnover to R&D&I. These competitive advantages have made it possible to export, on average, 60% of production to technologically demanding countries.

In 2009, the production of the sector in Spain was 745.1 millions of Euros. On the other hand, exports reached 551.9 millions of Euros, the 74.1% of the total production.

AFM, COMBINING ALL THE SECTOR'S POTENTIAL

The Machine Tool Manufacturers´ Association of Spain, which nowadays holds the Presidency of Cecimo (European Committee for Cooperation of the Machine Tool Industries), represents almost a hundred companies, which make this big economic reality possible. These companies represent 92% of total production. From its head offices in the San Sebastian Technology Park, and since its setting up in Tianjin (China), it has been working to facilitate its associates' access to international markets.

AFM is much more than an association, as it also has its technology unit, INVEMA, the Machine Tool Research Foundation. Its job is to promote technological development and to improve the industrial management of the sector's companies, in close collaboration with its R&D, quality, and safety units.

SPAIN AT THE IMTS 2010

This year's edition of the IMTS Trade Fair in Chicago has, as has been customary for years, a representation of Spanish Machine Tool manufacturers. Specifically 10 companies will exhibit their most important technological innovations in the different IMTS pavilions.