Innovative products and a business platform and meeting place for the sectors: that describes the INTERNATIONAL HARDWARE FAIR / PRACTICAL WORLD 2008. We welcomed more than 3,368 suppliers from 62 countries in Cologne.
Tools was once again the fair’s largest segment, with about 2,100 companies. About 300 suppliers were represented in the security systems, locks and fittings segment, and the range of products and services was completed by the builders’ and home improvement/DIY supplies segment, which included approximately 1,000 companies.
Eighty per cent of the exhibitors came to Cologne from abroad to find new business partners and maintain existing global contacts.
- This is because the Cologne exhibition centre is such an attractive venue:
- - as a central travel hub in Germany and worldwide
- - as the focal point of a region with one of the highest levels of purchasing power in Europe
- - and, not least, as a cosmopolitan city that captivates tourists and businesspeople alike with its distinctive Rhineland charm.
- The INTERNATIONAL HARDWARE FAIR / PRACTICAL WORLD will not be held in Cologne in 2009. With the Bilbao trade fair, however, we have found a partner that offers exhibitors from the hardware and DIY sectors an equally attractive venue:
- - Bilbao is attractive thanks to its long association with Spain’s tools industry,
- - Ferroforma is a well-established event in the European trade fair calendar,
- - and, last but not least, Bilbao also offers visitors and exhibitors many cultural highlights outside of the exhibition centre.
In other words, a visit to the Ferroforma trade fair in Bilbao really pays off!
Our combined efforts — with Ferroforma and the INTERNATIONAL HARDWARE FAIR / PRACTICAL WORLD — enable us to offer the market a globally unique product range and to provide exhibitors with a platform every year in the spring, in Cologne in even-numbered years and in Bilbao in odd-numbered years.
I am looking forward very much to Ferroforma and wish us and the BEC Bilbao great success! Thank you!
Welcoming address by Hans-Joachim Kampen, Product Manager for Koelnmesse’s International Hardware Fair / PRACTICAL WORLD, at the press conference in the run-up to Ferroforma, Bilbao, Tuesday, 2nd December 2008
