The Ligna+ in Hanover which finished May 18th is not only remarkable for the increase in visitors and exhibitors. Characteristic of this year´s world leading trade fair of the forest industry were the unusually high number of real sales being made. Quite a few factory owners gave “shopping tour” as the reason for their visit on the trade fair. At previous Ligna+ trade fairs one heard usually only: “We want to see what is new on the market.” That is why a lot of exhibitors could report contracts straight away and not only the ones which had been dealt with for month in advance.
Rainer Hundsdörfer, chairman of Weinig AG, announced proudly at the press conference that clients put projects into effect which had been started three years before. One could see the economic upturn for the machinery producers by looking at the receipts of orders, too. These were significantly higher in the 1st quarter of 2007 than in the 4th quarter of 2006 – and that despite the trade fair which is usually a reason for caution in buying. “We are pleased with our amount of sales on the trade fair also with the small and middle sized machines”, reported Dr. Joachim Brenk, chair spokesman of the Homag-Group. Especially the suppliers of standard machinery for carpenters benefited from the good atmosphere on the Ligna+ and its consequences. The manager of Altendorf, Andreas Ploeger, spoke at the final press conference about the carpenter trade as a group of clients who is “renowned for their buying according to the atmosphere like no other one.” The trade meeting point in Hannover has “represented the actual mood within the trade and even added a few superlatives in a lot of cases”, said Ploeger.
It is out of question that Stephan Ph. Kühne, board member of the Deutsche Messe AG, as the organizer of the whole fair trade, gave the suppliers´ statements who talked about the “best Ligna+ of all times” further to the journalists. The number of visitors surpassed with 107,000 the result of 2005 (96,675) by 10%. The number of suppliers rose from 1800 to 1879. A lot of suppliers noticed the great number and the big interest of Russian visitors.
“On the first day there were three to four potential costumers per member of staff amongst them a lot from Eastern Europe, Russia but also France, Italy, North America. They bought partly spontaneously without an appointment”, reported Hans Schillmeier, technical manager of the leading supplier of joinery machinery of Hans Hundegger Maschinenbau GmbH. Dr. Bernhad Dirr, manager of confirms this: “A substantial impulse for the orders comes from the foreign markets especially from the East European countries.” The explanation for the high demand for machinery in Russia is found quickly: high tax on round wood exports and lowered tax on machinery. There were a lot of reports about new glulam, finger jointed beams and duo / triolam works in East Europe and Russia at the Ligna+. The fair was able to confirm its reputation as worldwide leading trade fair in general. The proportion of international visitors grew up to more than 50,000 (41,400 in 2005.)
MS Maschinenbau benefit from the international interest in their products. The manager Ulrich Schmitz was able to sell a double arbour circular saw each to Surinam and Malysia. The band saw specialist Zenz did not only discuss one major project in Mosambique but some visitors from India were so enthusiastic about the concept of the horizontal band saw BN110 that the manager Josef Zenz expects to sign a contract with them within a few days.
The contracts which had been prepared before the fair also influenced the good atmosphere on the fair of course. “Buyers spend remarkably more money in complex solutions to meet their needs”, reported Hundshöfer at Weinigs press conference. One does not save in machinery-periphery The contract of a Resch&3 band saw, type 1050 which was signed at the trade fair includes a self moving grapple for example. Zenz´s major order fit into the whole picture of the trade fair: five horizontal band saws of the type BN110 are going to be delivered to Omsk, Siberia within the next few months.
The specialist for parquet machinery Fill was able to present one contract on the first day of the trade fair strait away. MeisterWerke bought the new thin cut band saw ”speedliner” for the production of parquet.
The long delivery period is a problem for the producers of machinery. Information about a delivery period until spring 2009 like the one of the Producer SMB were widely confirmed. The eye of the needle is quite often the suppliers
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