Over 4,600 square metres of net exhibition space will be occupied by the Spanish machine tool sector companies, making us the sixth biggest exhibiting country, only ranking behind the host country Italy and Germany, Japan, Taiwan and Switzerland. EMO 2009, the largest and most important international trade fair specialising in machine tools and manufacturing technologies, will be participated in by over 1,300 companies from 35 different countries, occupying a surface area of over 100,000 m2.

The Spanish Machine Tool sector has taken part in EMO since it was first held in 1975, always occupying a major space in line with its status as the world’s ninth largest producer and exporter. The machine tools showcased at this year’s EMO will certainly be diverse, but they have a common denominator: they are high added-value solutions geared to a specific part type and sector. High-performance equipment designed to cater for a specific requirement, basically for the renewable energy, railway, aeronautics and automotive sectors.

In spite of the demand problems the sector is currently facing in all countries, we trust that EMO will contribute to generating new business expectations. Some countries are taking measures to help recover their machine tool sector activity. A good example of this are the tax incentives recently launched by the Italian Government for purchasing high-tech production equipment. The measure has shown good results in the past and it would be positive if other governments followed suit.

Aware of the sector’s strategic importance as the basis for the country’s production activity, Government representatives will accompany the Spanish companies exhibiting at EMO. Among others, we are expecting visits from the Secretary-General for Industry, the Secretary-General for Innovation, the Regional Minister for Industry and the Deputy Regional Minister for Innovation and Energy of the Basque Government, the Director of the Catalonia Autonomous Government’s Industrial Planning Observatory, the Gipuzkoa Regional Government MP for Innovation and the Knowledge Society and the Director-General for Promotion and the Industrial Products Division Manager of the ICEX (Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade).