Eleven foreign experts resident in China who have received the Friendship Award, the top award given by the Chinese Premier to foreign experts, were invited to the event. Mr José Ignacio Artamendi had already received this award in October 2004 and February 2007. At the event the Premier recognised and thanked the foreign experts for their contribution to the country’s development. The event was also attended by a number of retired experts as well as several members of the Chinese government. Mr José Ignacio Artamendi is a professional with extensive experience in the machine tool sector. Since 2003 he has been the Co-director of the CSMC, Tianjin Chinese Spanish Vocational Training Centre, a centre created by the machine tool sector in collaboration with the Spanish and Chinese governments, where Chinese students can study with educational technology transferred from Spain and using the 42 machine tools with fully Spanish technology with which the CSMC is equipped.

Since 2008, Artamendi has also been managing a specific department made up of four people called the “Business & Development Spanish Department” which backs, advises and offers services to Spanish firms interested in tackling the Chinese market, especially in the Beijing-Tianjin region, one of the main industrial areas in the country.

Mr José Ignacio Artamendi stressed that the award and the subsequent events, more than a personal prize, were recognition of the work of the Spanish machine tool sector in China and an invitation to firms to start operating in China.

The advance of the Chinese machine tool market in the last five years is especially striking. In 2005, China was the seventh biggest market for Spanish firms and became the main source of incoming orders in 2010. China is currently the main 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 or Nicolás Correa have production plants and a larger number have their own sales offices in China, among them, the Danobat Group, Zayer, Ona Electroerosión, Puigjaner, Bost and Lantek.