In co-operation with the international forging association EURO-FORGE, METAV 2002 will be hosting a special presentation on the subject of high-tech forging at the same time the seventeenth IFC, the International Forging Congress, is being held.

This presentation will be concentrating on the fields of
• Technology
• Products and
• Equipment

The top decision makers in the international forging industries - a large number of highly experienced trade visitors from the field of metal forming - will be utilising these two hostings of the IFC and METAV 2002 as a high-ranking contact platform for getting to talk with metal forming manufacturers.

This is the unique opportunity for your company not only to utilise the potential of the 70,000 visitors to METAV, but to address the trade visitors to the IFC as well.

The METAV trade fair in Düsseldorf, an international trade fair for production engineering and automation (4th -8th June 2002), has aroused great interest even though it is the same year when the EMO trade fair in Hanover will be held. Seven months before the date it will be held, 600 direct exhibitors, as well as 60 co-exhibitors have already reserved a net area of more than 60000m2 for stands.

With their participation in the largest German universal fair for metal processing, the exhibitors have shown that they still have positive expectations for the development of the domestic market.

Even though the driving force behind the economic activity in the exhibiting sectors and in the user sectors have started to falter, it cannot be denied that the production of machine tools and precision tools in the year 2001 has reached historical records. Although the indicator for forecasting future development, in other words, domestic and foreign orders, is expected to decrease in the year 2002, the results will still be at a very high level.

The German market for metal processing, worldwide in second place behind the USA, is one of the most attractive markets in general. In this case it can be clearly seen that international trade exchange is not a one-way street. In the year 2000, 57 per cent of the German tool machine production was for exports. At the same time, the imports reached a proportion of nearly 45 per cent in the domestic market.

A survey among the visitors to the EMO trade fair 2001 in Hannover confirmed once again that international experts confer the highest skills to German suppliers in the area of production engineering, far above that of Japan, Italy and Switzerland. The companies must make the most of these opportunities. For this reason it is very important for the exhibiting companies with an active role in the market to be constantly present in the market with their full capacity. The METAV trade fair offers an excellent opportunity for this.

The offer of the METAV trade fair reflects the full spectrum of metal processing, which is addressed to the German domestic market. Therefore, both the trade and sales level were included in the fair right from the very beginning, in order to present products and solutions with a high market importance. The increasing proportion of second-hand machines speaks well for the constant and solid pragmatism that determines the METAV trade fair's offer.

Traditionally the centre of attention of METAV trade fair is towards machine tools for filing, reshaping and down-levelling purposes (about 60 per cent of the total area of the exhibition, at the editions of the trade fair). The offer is completed by precision tools, clamping and measuring tools, construction of tools and moulds (25 per cent) and by industrial electronics, automatic, steering technology, software, sensor and diagnostic technology, as well as the wide area of accessories (15 per cent).

From November 2001 onwards you can find information about the latest developments in participation in the METAV 2002 trade fair with the provisional list of exhibitors. You can also find constantly updated information about the trade fair at the Internet site: www.metav.de