12 Spanish Machine Tool Companies Meet Chinese Users in China

At the AFM (Machine Tool Manufacturers Association of Spain) Technical Symposium held on June 14 in the Tianjin Sino-Spanish Machine Tool Vocational Training Center, representatives from 12 Spanish machine tool companies gathered to communicate directly with Chinese users from the automotive, die & mold and other relevant industries. A total of 50 Chinese users attended the symposium. In addition, AFM organized a guided tour of the training center and mutual business talks between Spanish and Chinese enterprises. In the symposium, the current status of Spanish technology, Spanish machine tool market, as well as major machine tool enterprises was presented in view to let Chinese users get familar with Spanish enterprises. The 12 Spanish companies included Correaanayak, Danobat Group, Fagor Automation, Ibarmia, CME, alecop, doimak, Esrarta, Gadia, Juaristi, ONA electroerosion and Zayer, some of which are already established in the China market while others are interested in entering this potential market. Mikel Artola, Area Manager of AFM said, "We expect more people to come, but because of some reasons some of them do not show up." He also confirmed that AFM would continue to held similar activities to help Spanish enterprises to expand their presence in the China market. "Export market occupies 90% of our business," said Pedro Galarraga, Area Sales Manager of Anayak. "And one of our main markets is Germany, which proves that our products are of high quality but lower prices." With 20 years of experience in the China market, Fagor Automation reported a 40% to 50% sales growth in China in 2005, which was 55% of its Asian business. It is said that the proposition of Asian business to the total of the company expanded from 14% to 36% last year. The target of Fagor Automation in 2006 is to produce 1000 units of INNOVA DRO series, 250 units of de Reglas and 150 units of CNC 8035.