Bavarian Commerce Minister Hubert Aiwanger has been leading a delegation of companies from his region to Poland.
Nuremberg Messe CEO Dr Roland Fleck was part of the delegation and noted that attendance by Polish exhibitors and visitors at his venue’s shows had doubled in recent times.
Poland has developed more dynamically than any other economy in the European Union, the Bavarian Minister told his audience in Poland, and added that Germany was Poland’s most important trading partner by far, with bilateral trade volume with Bavaria rising nearly 60% since Poland joined the EU in 2004.
Over 2,500 Bavarian companies maintain business relations with Poland, noted Aiwanger, adding: “The trip’s objective was to strengthen Bavarian-Polish business connections still further and to tap new fields for cooperation.”
The programme included visits to companies in Gdansk, Warsaw and Wrocław to discuss networked technologies – a field that CEO Dr Roland Fleck believes Nuremberg Messe is extremely well positioned for: “Our trade events on digitalisation and Industry 4.0 offer outstanding platforms for Polish companies that would like to tap the German and European market.”
Poland sends over 28% of its exports to Germany, and brings in about 23% of its imports from its western neighbour. Bilateral trade volume between Poland and Bavaria in 2017 came to 17.9 billion euros.
Nuremberg Messe exhibition company counted 13,487 industry professionals and 445 exhibitors from Poland in 2018 – the first figure was almost twice the previous year’s count, while the second was two and a half times more than before. These figures raised Poland to 5th and 9th places, respectively, among international participants at Nuremberg trade events.
“Our portfolio of events offers very intriguing market opportunities. Nuremberg is centrally located in Europe and easily accessible by direct flights from Warsaw. And our exhibition centre offers an excellent infrastructure,” said Dr Fleck who reminded that his centre hosted it-sa, Europe’s largest IT security exhibition in terms of exhibitors; embedded world, the world’s leading tradefair and conference for embedded systems; and SPS, the leading event for industrial automation.
The exhibition combination of FENSTERBAU FRONTALE and HOLZ-HANDWERK, with more than 2,500 Polish industry experts visiting, is another popular event; but quadruple-digit numbers of Polish visitors also attend the Spielwarenmesse, IWA OutdoorClassics, BIOFACH/VIVANESS and Interzoo.
Dr Fleck pointed out that Nuremberg Messe provides in-country support for Polish companies interested in participating in events in Nuremberg. Meritum SC in Warsaw has been assisting exhibitors and visitors for 18 years as an international representative of the Messe. “We offer Polish companies assistance with everything from planning an exhibition appearance to logistics and booth construction,” said Anna Talarek-Karczmarz, Director of Meritum SC.
