• The biggest machine tool event in China is being held in Beijing from 11th to 16th April.
• The nineteen Spanish firms exhibiting their products at the 2011 CIMT show will occupy an exhibition area of 1,474.5 m2.

• Bernabé Unda, the Basque Government’s Industry Minister, will be visiting the show on 12th April.
• China is the leading consumer, producer and importer of machine tools in the world.

From 11th to 16th April, Beijing will be hosting the twelfth edition of the CIMT show, at which the world’s leading machine tool manufacturers will be exhibiting what’s new in advanced manufacturing technologies. Among them, nineteen Spanish firms, who will be occupying 1,474.5 m2 of exhibition space in hall E2: Autopulit, Bost, Danobat Group, Etxe-tar, Fagor Automation, Ipiranga, Ibarmia, Integi, Juaristi, Kendu, Korta, Laip, Lantek, Metra, Nicolás Correa, Spirsin, Shuton, Roscamat and Zayer.

Bernabé Unda, the Basque Government’s Minister of Industry, Innovation, Commerce and Tourism is scheduled to visit the fair, together with Pedro Gómez Damborenea, the Deputy Minister of Planning and Strategy, on 12th April accompanied by the Chairman, Board Members and Managing Director of the AFM. The Minister of Industry’s visit is part of a mission to China during which they will also visit the new facilities of the Tianjin Chinese Spanish Vocational Training Centre, Gamesa Wind Tianjin, Gamesa’s Chinese subsidiary, the Danobat Group’s new sales offices and will take part in the AFM Board Meeting which will be held in Tianjin on 11th April.

The AFM, the Spanish Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association, together with the AMT, the Spanish Association of Manufacturers of Accessories, Component Parts and Tools for Machine Tools, and with the support of the ICEX (Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade), is organising this group participation in what has become one of the biggest events in the world exhibition schedule for this sector. In 2009, the CIMT show brought together more than 1,222 exhibitors from 28 countries in an exhibition area of 107,760 m2 and received 265,000 visitors from 60 countries. In this edition the organisers hope to occupy a surface area in excess of 120,000 m2.

The advance in the Chinese machine tool market in the last five years has been spectacular. If back in 2005 China was the seventh biggest market for Spanish firms, last year it became the main source for incoming orders from foreign markets. China is currently the leading consumer, producer and importer and the sixth biggest exporter of machine tools in the world. A number of member-companies of the AFM like Fagor Arrasate, Fagor Automation and Nicolás Correa have production plants in China and a bigger number have their own sales offices there, amongst them, Danobat Group, Zayer, Ona Electroerosión, Puigjaner, Bost and Lantek.

Since 2003, the AFM has had a set-up of its own in China, the Tianjin Spanish Chinese Vocational Training Centre, CSMC, a result of collaboration between the Chinese and Spanish governments and a boost from the sector. In addition to being a modern vocational training centre, the CSMC is an excellent tool for promoting Spanish machine tools and supporting Spanish companies using machine tools in the Chinese market. The CSMC has just moved to a new location where it has doubled the space taken up by its facilities going from 5,000 to 10,000 m2 in a new area promoted by the local government, which houses a number of universities and vocational training centres.

ABOUT THE AFM

The AFM, the Spanish Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association, represents almost one hundred firms specialising in advanced manufacturing technologies which account for 94% of total production in the sector in Spain. From its headquarters in San Sebastian and from its offices in China it works to promote internationalisation and technological innovation in its member companies.

In 2010, machine tool production in Spain totalled €613.2m. Exports were in excess of €453m. 74% of production went to foreign markets. Sales in China in 2010 totalled more than €110m.