THE LEHENDAKARI OPENS THE BEST BIEMH OF THE DECADE

The Lehendakari (President of the Basque Government) Iñigo Urkullu has chaired this morning the official opening ceremony of the 30th Machine Tool Biennial. Considered as the most important industrial trade fair in Spain and the third most important in Europe, the event will bring together 1,751 exhibiting firms from 21 countries.

At the opening ceremony the Lehendakari was accompanied by the Minister of Economic Development and Infrastructure and President of BEC, Arantza Tapia, the President of the County Council of Bizkaia, Unai Rementería, President of AFM Cluster, Caesar Garbalena, President of AIMHE, Eduard Farrán, the Mayor of Bilbao, the Mayor of Barakaldo, the Managing Director of BEC, Xabier Ortueta, the President of the Chamber of Commerce of Bizkaia, José Ángel Corres and the President of the Chamber of Commerce of Gipuzkoa, Pedro Esnaola, among other personalities.

Following the opening speeches, the group conducted an inaugural visit seeing first-hand the latest developments presented in some of the most prominent stands of the six pavilions the Fair occupies. ADDIT3D, the first international fair on additive and 3D manufacturing, was also opened in today’s event. It occupies a large space in pavilion 4 and this year’s new item, BEDIGITAL By BIEMH, first forum dedicated exclusively to industrial application of digital technologies.

In his speech, César Garbalena, President of AFM Cluster defended the role of the industrial sector: “Advanced industry is the pillar of all developed economies. A strong, dynamic and competitive industry generates healthy and sustainable economic activity, and develops and attracts the best professionals, the best brains, generates knowledge and high capacity for innovation, promotes the international presence of companies, and perks up all kinds of high-added-value services”. 

Garbalena also highlighted the new paradigm of the digital industry, declaring: “A world of opportunities opens up: monitoring, collection and interpretation of vast amounts of data will allow us to improve processes, make decisions, save energy, reduce costs, predict situations, etc. We will be able to provide new services and generate more value around that growing capacity for exploiting information. We need to design our own strategy. Equipping ourselves with the people and profiles that drive the transformation, and incorporating 4.0 technologies in our processes and our products”.

After the opening ceremony, the Lehendakari visited several companies from the sector taking an interest in their projects and recent developments.

The machine tool and advanced manufacturing technologies sector has closed 2017 with a significant increase in sales of 12.97%, with 1,690 million Euro, a record figure. Also breaking marks, exports grew by 4.10%, reaching 1,233.37 million Euro. Growth is based largely on the huge collection of orders experienced by the deformation subsector in 2016, delivered in 2017.

AFM CLUSTER brings together a collective of more than 400 companies in the field of advanced and digital manufacturing, 120 of which will be present at the fair occupying a significant part of the exhibition space of the BIEMH.