Entrepreneurship focus for naval sector trade fair
After the success of its sixth edition, in which Navalia became the first naval trade fair in Spain and Southern Europe, it now intends to become an essential meeting place for the sector, where participating companies can exhibit their latest developments from 22nd to 24th May, 2018.
Vigo, the first industrial city in Galicia, will once again be the venue of this international event which promises to bring together 25,000 professionals and 500 exhibitors from all over the world.
The fair will once more organise conferences and symposiums covering issues of utmost interest to the sector professionals that make up the bulk of visitors. These components are aiming to stimulate debate on diverse issues such as offshore, energy efficiency, improvements in training, risk prevention at work, new technologies and products that contribute to sustainability of the environment.
For the technical conferences, the organisation has already received some requests from companies like Vaf Instruments, who will speak about Solutions for Compliance and Propulsion Efficiency. A seminar conducted by UK company Vulkan Industries will deal with Drivetrain, Vibrations and Acoustics, and one by Vicusdt will cover helix radiated noise and the demonstration of Hydrocomp tools. All of them will take place within Vigo’s fairground and will be accessible for every visitor.
ACCELERATING ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Concerning accelerator companies, start-ups and entrepreneurship, at present Navalia’s organisers believe that the naval sector is currently behind the curve in these areas. This is why the Entrepreneur Association of Galicia has hosted a presentation, in cooperation with Navalia, from Océano Azul, an accelerator company from the Official Naval Engineering Association, in which Xunta de Galicia, University of A Coruña and Aclunaga participated. This accelerator company’s projects, says Navalia, will be pioneers at the event with the aim of encouraging entrepreneurship within the sector.
There will be an exhibition area for start-ups to divulge their product, and another one to hold meetings with potential investors. Navalia is expecting to present between six and eight projects, fundamentally related to easily applicable advanced technology and affordable investment. Furthermore, there are also plans to hold a conference focusing on how to be an entrepreneur within the naval sector. “The idea is that this technological space, which is already very widespread in other exhibitions, will consolidate itself in the next edition in order to promote entrepreneurship among the naval sector, a sector that has great potential, as well as the automotive one, which we would like to use as a model”, explained Javier Arnau, CEO of Navalia.
BUILDING NUMBERS
Mr. Arnau further affirmed in March that this will be, without any doubt, the biggest of the Navalia exhibitions organized to date.” In the absence of the new pavilion, still under construction and with a two-month timeframe, both pavilions 1 and 2 of IFEVI are complete and the organization has been working for months in the space of the pavilion 3, with 50% of exhibitor occupation plus the spaces dedicated to business meetings and technical conferences. These figures show an increase of 30% on visitor numbers over Navalia 2016. “This growth is, mainly, international. We are receiving requests from many European countries, also from American companies and some from Dubai or South Africa, to mention a few examples”.
To Mr. Arnau, much of the success of the new exhibition is down to the good health of the naval sector itself, as well as the boom of the cruise sector, the fishing fleet renewal (especially, he has cited in Spain, Morocco, South Africa and India) and the military vessels. Javier Arnau expects some announcements to be made about the assignment of new ships during Navalia, from both shipyards from Galicia and from the rest of Spain.
ITALIAN PRESENCE
The event is set to host a large presence of Italian exhibitors due to an agreement signed between the exhibition and the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Spain. For the first time in its 14 years, Navalia will have an Italian Pavilion, hosting companies such as:
Mori Carlo S.R.L (Marina Palmense), Idromeccanica Forani & Pecorari S.N.C (Civitanova Marche), Frigoemme S.R.L (San Benedetto del Tronto), C.M.M. Construzioni Meccaniche Marine di Giacoponi Simone (Campofilone).
Olcese Ricci S.R.L (Sori) and Speich S.R.L (Genova) will also participate in the same space. In addition to these are other exhibitors from the transalpine country such as Bimotor S.P.A, Pellegrini Marine Equipment or Sormec S.R.L.
By Jake Frith
