Associations

2010-11-26

500 attendees at the French Textile Machinery conferences in Syria and Turkey

Christian Guinet, Commercial Manager (Textile division) of Stäubli France had just been elected President of the French Association of Textile Machinery Manufacturers´ Promotion Commission when the two conferences organized by UCMTF in Syria and Turkey took place on October 19 and 21, 2010. Together with Evelyne Cholet, the Secretary General, he headed the French delegation.

After the events he stated “we organized these conferences because we recognize the importance of direct communication between our customers and the top management of our companies. We consider our customers as our partners and want to personally understand their needs. It was a real privilege to receive so many well-known companies, we are very rewarded with these conferences outcome and we look forward to meet all these dynamic companies again and again.”

Evelyne Cholet adds “to have a more direct and personal contact with our customers we organized two conferences on both sides of the Syrian-Turkish border: one in Aleppo (Syria) and one in Gaziantep (Turkey). This enabled us to focus on the particular specialities of each group and to offer our customers the opportunity to listen and speak in their own languages.”

The French delegation included: N. Schlumberger, Laroche, Asselin-Thibeau, Andritz Perfojet, SwissTex France, Superba, Stäubli, Ebelmann, Dollfus&Muller, AESA Air Engineering, Alliance Machines Textiles, Rousselet, Callebaut de Blicquy.

The conference in Aleppo was inaugurated by the Syrian Vice-Minister of Industry, in charge of the textile sector, Mr Farès Al-Shihabi, the Mayor of the City, the President of the Chamber of Industry and of the Chamber of Commerce and was attended by many high ranking officials and industrialists. It was sponsored by the Syrian bank BEMO which presented a lecture on how to finance such investments. During the morning, the French manufacturers introduced their latest technologies and the afternoon was dedicated to face to face meetings.

The conference in Gaziantep was honoured by the mayor and the representatives of the industry. Two affiliates of the leading French banking group, BNP Paribas (TEB Leasing and TEB Factoring) introduced new financing opportunities.

The conferences helped the Syrian and Turkish companies understand how the French state of the art, energy saving machinery can enable them to enhance their position on the global markets by providing sustainable competitive advantages. Christian Guinet concluded that such conferences should be organized as often as possible and told the local press he was really impressed by the dynamism of the mostly family run companies working for their long run future.