Concrete Show considered to be the biggest event in Latin America
The first day of the Concrete Show South America 2011 trade show could not have started better. The aisles of the 53,000 square metres of the fair were packed with visitors who came from all over Brazil and also from overseas.
More than 7000 visitors came to this event on 1st congress day. Among them was Herman Oognik, CTO (Chief Technical Officer) of Nemetschek, who was at the event for the second time, and for the first time as an exhibitor on his company’s own stand. “The current economic climate in Brazil compelled us to come here. We work with construction software, a new technology here in this country, totally based on 3D graphics and it is being very well received”, he explained. The Dutchman added that he was “impressed with the growth of the fair from last year to this year”.
Cristiano Kunzler, Vice-President of BMC – Brasil Máquinas, which represents Hyundai Heavy Industries in Brazil – one of the organising partners of Concrete Show 2011 – underlined the positive feeling that led his company to have such a strong association with the event. “We are present at all construction equipment trade fairs, but this one is the most important. Of the three years we have taken part in, we saw the event expanding and we prepared ourselves that much more, because we saw the constant growth of the concrete market in Brazil, due to all the infrastructure work taking place”, the executive explained.
The event adds a lot of value to the sector. Brasil is no longer the country of the future, it is the country of the present. And civil construction is the pathway towards our growth”, enthused Renato Giusti, President of ABCP (Associação Brasileira de Cimento Portland) [The Brazilian Portland Cement Association].
To open the event, a press conference was organised, which was attended by Claudia Godoy – General Director of UBM Sienna; Hugo Rodrigues – Communications Manager of ABCP (Associação Brasileira de Cimento Portland) [The Brazilian Portland Cement Association]; Arcindo Vaquero y Mayor – President of ABESC (Associação Brasileira das Empresas de Serviços de Concretagem) [The Brazilian Association of Concrete Services Companies], José Carlos de Oliveira Lima – Vice-President of FIESP and President of Sinaprocim (Sindicato Nacional da Indstria de Produtos de Cimento) [The National Union of the Cement Products Industry] and Sérgio Watanabe – President of SINDUSCON (Sindicato da Construção de São Paulo) [The São Paulo Construction Union]. Watanabe pointed out that even with the deceleration that was seen in the property market in the first half of the year, the general outlook for the civil construction sector is still very good. “We believe we are going to grow ahead of Brazilian GDP”, he stated.
Oliveira Lima, of FIESP, continued in the same vein, saying that the conditions in which this scenario could come to fruition depend largely on the issue of there being a well-trained workforce, a concern throughout the entire chain of production and which will be discussed in a seminar run by Concrete Congress on Friday 2nd of September. “We want to go beyond merely having technical know-
ledge, anyone who works in Civil Construction should be proud to say that and also manage to attend to all the demands of the market”, he underlined.
This year, the exhibition took place at another fairground, as the enormous popularity of the event resulted in a large growth. Therefore, „Centro de Exposiçðes Imoigrantes“, the halls of the exhibition center in the northwest of the city were the venue in 2011. The more than
500 exhibitors covering a floor space of more than 53.000 m² let this trade show become the largest show in Latin America. This year again, there was a small Concrete Congress where workshops and seminars took place simultaneously.
At the end of the trade show, the response of the international exhibitors was especially positive. Both the continuously large number of visitors and the quality of the negotiations were highly satisfactory. It goes without saying, that such results are reason for the optimism and the confidence on the Brazilian market. A large number of the international customers came from Europe and, in particular, the German construction machinery suppliers were represented in the halls of the Concrete Show Brazil. ¢
Please note! Next Concrete Show 29.-31. August 2012
