Assomac Ordinary Meeting - 25 June - Vigevano 
Chairman Gaia asks the sector to "work in a system"

from Davide Catena at Assomac

As is customary, Assomac, the Italian Association of Manufacturers or Footwear, Tannery and Leather goods Machinery, celebrated the ritual of its Ordinary Meeting on the last Friday in June. Chairman Giovanni Gaia presented a lengthy and detailed report in the Association's meeting room in the presence of numerous entrepreneurs, guests and journalists.

Gaia acknowledged the recession in the Western manufacturing industry, countered by a systematic advance of Far Eastern manufacturers, with China to the fore. Italian technology manufacturers are paying the price of the recession for Western industry/customers, which in 2003 registered a fall of 21% in production and 20% in exports.

This is a serious difficulty, shared by the whole tool machinery world, such that Federmacchine (the new name of Intermaccanica) has produced a "manifesto" in which it asks the national and European authorities for support measures enabling them to counter international competition at least on equal terms.

Acknowledging that, unfortunately, the first months of 2004 show no trend reversal, with a resulting continuation of serious suffering, Gaia illustrated Assomac's activities, manifested primarily in actions of "economic diplomacy", particularly in the developing countries given over to tanning, footwear and leather goods.

Assomac is, of course, also focusing on large countries such as China, India and Russia. In particular, it has translated the Italian technological production commodity books into Chinese and Russian. It has also prepared a technical dictionary in Chinese and Cyrillic.

On the subject of editorial projects, it has presented the "Innovation Notebook for Leather goods Industry" which supplements those on footwear and the tanning industry. The Association's withdrawal from the journal Mondo Shoes has been announced.

Chairman Gaia also devoted considerable space to Simac and Tanning-Tech, the two Assomac events. In particular, he gave a clear response on the annual/biennial matter: "Assomac has considered this matter long and hard, conferring with associates and exhibitors. It has devoted committee and board meetings to the debate and it has emerged that SIMAC and Tanning-Tech are considered an asset to our sector, an asset to be protected and kept on an annual basis."

To end, after announcing that the Assomac family has grown with the entry of tanning-chemical companies in the form of Associate members, the Chairman said that restructuring of the sector is inevitable and companies that are able to interpret the change will come out of this stronger. The main objective is to defend and reassert technological leadership. To achieve this, it is crucial that companies in the sector are able to "work in a system".

The Vice-Chairman with responsibility for tanning machinery, Giulio Tandura, then intervened analyzing the tanning sector and the problems that condition it. Obviously, his conclusions could be no different from those stated by Gaia.

The entire report by Chairman Gaia and the Trend Report can be seen on the website www.assomac.it

ASSOMAC
National Association of Italian Manufacturers of 
Footwear, Leather goods and Tannery Machines
Via Matteotti, 4/A - P. O. Box 113 - 27029 Vigevano (PV) 
Tel. +39-0381-78883 r. a. Fax +39-0381-88602
Email: info@assomac.it | Website: www.assomac.it