Light and darkness are close together in the composites industry right now. This overall economic climate left its marks on COMPOSITES EUROPE, too – positively and negatively. The leading trade fair in the DACH region (the German-speaking countries) for fibre-reinforced plastics – sold mainly to customers in the automotive, aerospace, and plant and mechanical engineering industries – suffered from lower demand from both exhibitors and visitors this year. In total, organiser Reed Exhibitions registered 310 exhibitors (prior year: 354) and 7,581 visitors (prior year: 8,148) from 64 countries, a decrease of seven per cent.
Two industries – both key buyers of glass-fibre reinforced plastics (GFRP) – created most of the trade fair’s challenges: the automotive industry, which suffers massively from declining sales and fears trade barriers, and the plant and mechanical engineering sector, where the current economy has similarly depressed the numbers and the mood. Positive signals, meanwhile, are coming from aerospace and increasing demand in the booming construction sector.
“Trade fairs are seismographs of their industries – this is true as well for COMPOSITES EUROPE, which in an economically heterogeneous environment showed its importance for bringing new ideas and innovations to market”, says Michael Freter, managing director of Reed Exhibitions Deutschland GmbH.
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13 September 2019
