EIFI Conference 2018

by the EIFI Secretariat

The EIFI 2018 conference was held from 24 to 26 May in the beautiful sea city of Split, the second largest city of Croatia. 

The programme started on Thursday 24 May with a welcome cocktail and dinner at the Hotel Le Meridien Lav, where people from the major European manufacturers of fasteners, Members of EIFI, and many special guests from the Fasteners Associations of China, Taiwan and USA, had the occasion of meeting each other, in a friendly atmosphere.

The full-day meeting programme started on Friday 25 May, with the Automotive Group Chairman Paolo Pozzi who presented an interesting European and worldwide overview of the automotive sector. Global vehicles sales do show a very good trend in April 2018 YTD:  + 9.6% in Europe, + 4.8% in China, + 19.7% in Brazil, + 20.5% in Russia, + 19% in Argentina, stable the USA while a small downturn in Japan (- 1.3%) was registered. In 2018 a general worldwide sales growth of +2.1% in the automotive market is estimated. As far as the electrification trend, in 2017 the average European emissions were 117,3 g/km down from 132 g/km registered in 2012 but many countries do show a negative trend, such as Netherlands, Greece, Luxembourg and some others. The production of BEV (battery electric vehicles) is expected to increase by 8% in the next seven years (2018-2025) worldwide. Mr. Pozzi also analyzed in detail the new mobility services, which most important impact on the automotive industry will not be – he said -  on the volume of vehicle sales, but rather it will be on how customers interact with vehicles, their expectations for vehicles, and their uses of these vehicles. The meeting continued with a very interesting speech from Zoran Legac, co-owner of the Croatian Company “Feroimpex automobilska tehnika d.o.o”, producing bearings and parts for the automotive industry, such as wind power and railway industry. This presentation, titled “Innovative Croatian solutions for the global automotive industry”, went through the three main goals of his Company: the “Breaking of Metal Scrap” which consists of an innovative scrap metal breaking technology, which shortens the metal scrap, reduces its volume and makes its handling easier. The “Innovative Measuring”, based on designing innovative technology prototype of dimensional measurement and control of metal parts and the “Robotization, Automation, Digitalization” aimed to maximize customer value while minimizing waste. Simply, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources.

The EIFI President Anders Karlsson thanked Paolo Pozzi and Zoran Legac for their presentations and opened the first part of the General Assembly. After the presentation dedicated to the EIFI balance-sheet 2017 and budget 2018 made by the Secretariat, the word was given to Stefan Beyer, General Manager of the EIFI Executive Committee, who presented an update on the many activities carried out during the year and the future projects such as the the Ppm document update “Mechanical Fasteners - Quality of Technical Characteristics”, a new survey on electricity and gas tariffs at European level and the amendment of the EN nomenclature code system CN 7318.

The open part of the General Assembly started with the presentation of the EIFI Board Score 2017, which includes production, import and export figures collected from EIFI members and a general economic outlook in Europe.

In 2017, the European economy grew at its fastest rate in 10 years, as the recovery spread to all member states. It was supported by high levels of confidence, as well as by synchronised global expansion, low financing costs, improving private balance sheets and brightening labour market conditions.

European economy should continue growing for some time, with unemployment falling further and inflation increasing only very gradually. GDP growth in Euro area was 2.4% in 2017, forecast 2.3% in 2018 and easing to 2% in 2019.

Ramon Ceravalls,  Chairman of the General Fasteners Group of EIFI, focused his report on the trends of the building sector in Europe and worldwide. The world constructions outlook 2018-2022 is expected to be good, with a yearly increase of 3.9%. Estimate growth for 2030 is more than 50% in China, USA and India. The European Constructions output in 2017 was 1.5 billion € (i.e. + 3.5% in comparison with 2016).

Josip Tica, Full Professor at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics and Business, gave a very interesting and deep outlook on the worldwide economic performance in the time-lapse 2000-2020 with the following general comments: global growth forecast is 3.9% (0.2 above October forecast for 18-19); USA, Japan, EMU and China grow above expectations as well as the emerging markets Brazil, Mexico, CEE.

The General Assembly was then closed by the EIFI special guests with their interesting speeches; they gave a general overview of their Fasteners Associations with particular reference to the fasteners industry in their country. EIFI addresses its best thanks for their attendance to Florian Seidl, member of the Executive Board at EFDA, Ivan Lin, Chairman of International Committee and Josh Chen, Vice Chairman at TFTA, Taiwan Fasteners Trading Association, Kangsheng Xue, Chairman of CFIA, China Fasteners Industry Association and Emanuel DeSantis, Vice-Chairman of IFI, Industrial Fasteners Institute.

The gala dinner was the occasion for President Karlsson to mention Robert Lench, EIFI honorary President, who has ever joined the EIFI events but this year was unfortunately not able to come. He then awarded Christian F. Kochersheidt with the Robert Dicke Award, with the compliments and applauses of those present and took the occasion to wish happy birthday to Sergio Pirovano, who kindly offered his prosecco to all attendees.

Saturday 26 May, was entirely dedicated to a pleasant common excursion to Šibenik, the oldest native Croatian town on the sea shore, built completely in stone between 1431 and 1536, both in Gothic and Renaissance style.

Thanks to DIV Friends for the very good organization of the event.

The next annual EIFI convention will be organized by Member Artema in France, dates to be fixed.