European and North American tool and mould makers expect sales to continue to grow this year, but a number of factors have changed the way they do business, according to delegates at the Istma World Assembly in Lyon, France.
Fausto Romagnani’s face spread into a wide smile when he was asked about the results of the meeting of most of the west’s leading tool and mould making associations. “I’m surprised that everyone is so optimistic.” Both the strong 2011 results for the industry and the prospects of continued growth this year showed in the joyful expression of the president of Istma, the International Special Tooling & Machining Association, the umbrella organisation for the world’s national tool and mould maker organisations.
Individual countries reporting last year’s performance for their tool and mould makers said, in general, that they expect their industries to outpace growth rates predicted for their national economies. The worst outlooks from the national level were “stable”, a word heard much less often than “good” or “very good” at the meetings. Delegates declined to allow ETMM, which sat in on the meetings, to publish specifics about each national industry at press time, but Boo Rundqvist, communications director at Istma Global Partner Uddeholm, provided an idea about metal demand: “Most of the growth that we saw during 2011 was related to Europe and Americas,” he said. ETMM will continue to report national data when released.
Sourced from etmm-online.de
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