Four months ahead of ITMA ASIA + CITME, which will take place from 27 to 31 July 2008 in Shanghai, the German textile machinery industry presents itself in top form. In 2007, the German manufacturers of textile machinery and accessories had been able to increase the good export figures of 2006 by 7.2 per cent to 3.9 billion Euro.

9,000 square meters Made in Germany

At ITMA ASIA, some 130 German exhibitors will present their products and services to the Asian textile industries on 9,000 square meters. The official German participation (German pavilion) initiated by VDMA will cover 3,200 square meters with 70 exhibitors. According to the ITMA tradition, the different branches will be presented separately. For realising this concept, so-called "German Clusters" have been prepared for this official German participation in the hall for spinning machinery (W4), the hall for washing, bleaching, dyeing, finishing machinery (E1), the hall for weaving machinery (E6), the hall for knitting and hosiery machinery (E4) and the hall for nonwoven machinery (W4).

Asia is the main export market

Also in 2007, Asia was the main export market for textile machinery Made in Germany. With a share worth 1.85 billion Euro, more than half of the German textile machinery exports went to this region. One quarter - equalling one billion Euro - were sold to China alone", explains Thomas Waldmann, the Managing Director of the Textile Machinery Association within the German Engineering Federation VDMA.

The second strongest market is Turkey. With a plus of 72 per cent, machines worth 408 million Euro were purchased. The sales to India - on rank three - decreased by 18.3 per cent to 301 million Euro. Italy pushed the USA (- 5.4 per cent) from rank four and shows a plus of 7.9 per cent. The USA are followed by the Czech Republic (+ 27 per cent), which is particularly due to the increase in sales of spinning machinery. The Eastern European markets made a good development with an increase of 63.4 per cent.

Big demand for spinning machinery

The biggest increases 2007 were booked by the spinning machinery manufacturers. Exports of this technology increased by 20 per cent to an export value of 1.6 billion Euro. The export of weaving machinery reached 351 million Euro (+ 1.4 per cent). The export of knitting an hosiery machines covered 1.2 billion Euro (+ 1.3 per cent). Only the export of finishing machinery including washing, bleaching and dyeing technologies slightly declined by 3.2 per cent to 684 million Euro.