TIMTOS ready to cross the borders in 2019

Let’s see if you are prepared: what is the fifth fair in the world? And what is the fifth largest power exporter in the world of machine tools? And, above all, what is the nation that expects an increase in exports of 20% by the end of 2017? All right, you’re prepared: it’s Taiwan. A country where the supply chain is not short, but very short: all the sub-suppliers of a flourishing machine tool industry are located in just over 60 kilometers. This is why the Taiwanese can boast reduced production times and competitive prices: for them logistics is practically an option.

TIMTOS, the exhibition of machine tools held in Taipei in March of the odd years (next edition 5-10 March 2019), reached in 2017 the enviable goal of the twenty-seventh edition, confirming itself as the second machine tool fair in Asia: over fifty thousand visitors, about 15% of whom come from Europe and the US, more than one thousand exhibitors, 228 of which are foreign numbers of last year’s edition, a record that the organizers of TAMI and TAITRA wish to overcome in two years, when they will have at their disposal a new pavilion of the Taipei fairground, whose construction is proceeding with forced stops.

Is it really worth it for a European or American, or South American, or Japanese company, to participate in TIMTOS?

The question, in fact, has its own profound interest on many levels. For example, we are not used to considering Taiwan as a possible market, especially for machine tools. Of course, however, as is clear from all statistics, Asia as a whole, and in particular China, are undoubtedly very interesting areas. If in Timtos about 90% of visitors come from the Far East, in particular from China, it is clear what interest the fair could represent for European companies.

What curious stories are there behind the take-off of a manufacturing industry that declares itself ready to fight to dispel the myth of low prices at the cost of poor quality, throwing itself headlong into the challenge of Industry 4.0?

There are many curiosities behind one of the emerging fairs on the world scene. One tells the journalist Luc De Smet: “I was in Taipei for the last edition of Timtos. During the first day, it immediately struck me that many Taiwanese companies’ stands were really overflowing with flowers. I thought it was a bizarre fashion in setting up the stands, but then they explained to me that the flowers were a welcome gift of suppliers to exhibiting companies, as a good omen for the success of the fair. As if to say, your good is also our good “. Definitely a way of understanding the supply chain relationship a bit different from the western one.

Beyond the curiosity and the genuine enthusiasm of the organizers, the Taiwanese association of machine manufacturers (TAMI) and the council for foreign trade (TAITRA), there are above all the growing numbers of a fair that is being renewed, both in communication as well as in infrastructures, but above all a country that proposes itself as a focal point for the Far East, both as regards access to the markets of neighboring countries, and as a quality manufacturing nation, distinguishing itself from neighboring nations.