1、1What is really more important are the technical breakthroughs that are occurring quicker and quickerIn 2015， The French machinery manufacturers were back to the best levels ever， more than 1 billion US Dollars in annual sales. 2016 is more uncertain， particularly as in our most important market， yo
2、ur own country China； our sales will be about 15 to 20% lower than the previous years. Growth can be expected on the Indian market but investments decisions are slower than we imagined. Other Asian markets are active and the investment mood is positive in many markets like Indonesia， Thailand， Vietn
3、am or South Korea. In Iran， the textile industry is in the starting blocks as the machinery is outdated. The US economy is clearly growing and markets like Western Europe， Eastern Europe or Central Asia are doing quite well but are not big enough to compensate the slowdown in China. What is really m
4、ore important than the markets ups and downs， are the technical breakthroughs that are occurring quicker and quicker. We are well prepared to face this challenge as R&D is in our DNA， remember that we are the 2successors of the most well known machinery inventor， Jacquard. Today， we are SMEs investi
5、ng in R&D to answer our customers needs. Another positive main factor for our future is the investments we have made to develop our sales and services networks. Then， we are quite positive on our long term strategies. ITMA ASIA+CITME is clearly among the major textile machinery shows. Our associatio
6、n， UCMTF， is member of CEMATEX， and then we are part of the organization of the ITMA and ITMA Asia. We believe that are too many machinery shows worldwide and， if we support some other ones， the ITMAs are essential for us. In Shanghai， each of the French exhibitors will show new technologies， they w
7、ill welcome all visitors whether long time customers or new ones， let list them： ?NSC Fiber to Yarn， lines for long fibre spinning - Stand H1 F08 ?LAROCHE， for textile waste recycling， fiber opening and nonwoven - Stand H2 C48 ?FIL CONTROL， sensors and cutters- Stand H1 B15 ?AESA Air Engineering - S
8、tand H1 D03 ?SUPERBA， heat setting， space dyeing， carpet lines - 3Stand H3 C01 ?DOLLFUS & MULLER， endless felts and dryer belts - Stand H6 A13 ? TRELLEBORG， rubber shrinking belts- Stand H6 D52 After many years of double digit growth， the Chinese economy is ？ only ？ growing around 7%. Most countries
9、 would be very happy with such figures. In fact， for the Chinese textile industry， the most important event seems to be the accelerat- ing growth of the wages. Due to that， or thanks to that， the Chinese textile industry is becoming much less cost competitive compared to other Asian textile industri
10、es. To find new markets， the Chinese textile industry therefore has to upgrade its production both for the export markets and for the national market which is not yet really exploited. When we travel around China， we can see that the Chinese men and women are looking for fashion items and have the i
11、ncome to pay for such products. It is true also for home textile. As for technical textiles， they are often bulky and cannot be shipped around the world. Then， the demand for these technical textiles will grow at a fast rate for many years to come. Other Asian countries can capitalize on this trend
12、and become very competitive for lower end products. For us， machinery 4manufacturers， these shifts among Asian countries are a real opportunity. We are not on mass market machinery， for cotton spinning for example but we are designing， manufacturing and servicing specialty machines which are needed for all production processes. May I conclude about our expectations for ITMA ASIA+ CITME 2016. We are expecting many visitors from all over Asia to show them our latest technologies， to listen to them， understand better their needs. Our very dedicated teams will welcome them.
