 | |
|
Dr. Bernd Scherer, Managing Director of the VDMA Agricultural Machinery Association
|
During the last few days Agritechnica was the meeting place for the world of agricultural machinery. Fundamental changes in farming worldwide – a steep rise in demand for foods and renewable raw materials – are leading to a new orientation. The manufacturers of agricultural machinery sensed this at the world’s leading agricultural machinery exhibition, Agritechnica, that has just ended.
The VDMA Agricultural Machinery Association that represents the agricultural machinery branch as its trade association reports that the exhibitors were highly satisfied with the result of the exhibition. The exhibitors showed a unique and unsurpassed range of new machines for farmers from all regions of the world. Discussions of a high technical standard were conducted on the exhibition stands. The distinct increase in the number of foreign visitors was particularly encouraging. Particularly large numbers came from the CIS group of former Soviet Republics and from the Central and East European states. The number of visitors from Central Europe (EU 12) and from overseas was higher than at the last Agritechnica two years ago. The high level of qualification and large numbers of professional visitors from Germany show that German farmers are currently looking to the future with great optimism and plan to continue investing in modern agricultural machinery. This all makes for a buoyant mood among manufacturers for the coming months. Business expectations remain good. The exhibitors expect good to very good business for the coming year, in East European export markets too.
For the exhibitors the number one target at Agritechnica was to initiate new business relations. All the exhibitors surveyed achieved this goal. This result led to the great satisfaction with Agritechnica 2007. All exhibitors view the increasing international nature of the exhibition, reflected in both the larger overall number of foreign exhibitors and in the number and qualification of the international visitors, as positive. The main themes in the discussions with customers were the product innovations of the exhibitors and the price and performance of the capital investments.
Agritechnica 2007 can be described as the most successful event in the history of this exhibition.
