Daily newspaper (№19)

SOYUZAGROMASH AND VDMA LANDTECHNIK EXPAND RELATIONSHIP IN THE EXHIBITION AGROSALON

30 German manufacturers of agricultural machinery will receive support from the Ministry of Agriculture of Germany for participation in the exhibition of agricultural machinery AGROSALON

On June 15, 2009 the presidents of the Russian Union of Manufacturers of Agricultural Machinery «Soyuzagromash» and the Association of Manufacturers of Agricultural Machinery of Germany VDMA Landtechnik Konstantin Babkin and Henning Paulsen signed the agreement about expansion of relationship for organization of the exhibition AGROSALON.

According to the signed agreement, cooperation of the two Unions involves collective decision-making on issues of the exhibition date and place, periodicity, pricing policy, topics and companies accommodation order. The Russian and German Unions will be making joint efforts to promote the exhibition AGROSALON in Russia and abroad.

As Konstantin Babkin noted, the specialized exhibition AGROSALON 2009 is gaining momentum, in spite of the objective difficulties in the agricultural machinery market. «We are fully supported by the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation and we welcome the initiative of the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection of Germany concerning support of the collective exhibit of the German mechanical engineers at the exhibition AGROSALON 2009», the president of «Soyuzagromash» asserted.

According to Mr. Paulsen, the Russian Federation is one of the promising markets for the German manufacturers. In the past the machinery was sold by export from Germany, whereas recently investments in production and DKD have grown in various entities of the Russian Federation.

«Such an important market as Russia should have a specialized exhibition of agricultural machinery», Henning Paulsen said. «I am glad that the joint efforts of the Unions helped us to create such an exhibition as AGROSALON which gives a unique opportunity to manufacturers of agricultural machinery to intensively communicate with the leading manufacturers of agricultural goods of Russia».

The Association VDMA Landtechnik represents over 150 German manufacturers of agricultural machinery and utilities. The total volume of turnover of the companies in 2008 exceeded 7.3 billion Euros, out of which more than 2/3 are sold in export markets.

SHOTGUN INTERVIEW WITH THE DIRECTOR OF «SOYUZAGROMASH» YEVGENIY KORCHEVOY

Correspondent. Yevgeniy Anatolyevich, why was the topic of the press conference defined as «AGROSALON is a crisis-free area»?.

Ye.А. Korchevoy. It’s not a secret that the beginning of the financial crisis made many companies that dealt with the exhibition activities cancel their events or suspend their projects and wait for better times. At the same time, we can see that in spite of its young age, the exhibition АГРОСАЛОН finds support from the machinery manufacturers and consumers. We face another sort of objectives – we should create favorable conditions for participants of AGROSALON, form and interesting and useful business program, maximally inform people about all the events that will be held within the framework of the exhibition.

Correspondent. Is it possible that all is so well and the crisis didn’t affect the enterprises in agricultural machinery engineering?

Ye.А. Korchevoy. Indeed, the market of agricultural machinery has dropped by 45%. It’s much. But we don’t try to make a tragedy out of that, as we have had worse times. I am sure that the situation will change and Russia will remain the most preferable market for all the manufacturers of agricultural machinery in the world.

We should admit that this year the participants of the exhibition are taking kind of smaller areas. But at the same time, we can see that the number of participants of AGROSALON is growing and there will be much more of them than in 2008.

Correspondent. It’s not a secret that many organizers of exhibitions hurry to win support from various ministries and invite important visitors. Whom are you expecting to see at AGROSALON?

Ye.А. Korchevoy. We will not break all the secrets. But we are really expecting important visitors. Moreover, the expected visitors have long ago admitted the importance of agricultural machinery engineering and noted that combine harvesters are not less important for Russia than missiles. And then we received support from the specialized Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Economic Development. We were supported by the largest unions and associations – the RUIE, Union of Mechanical Engineers of Russia, and Commercial Russia. Only the number of information partners of AGROSALON has risen beyond sixty and it’s not yet the limit. All in all, visitors remain the most important guests at our exhibition.

Correspondent. Are we going to see new products at AGROSALON this year? Perhaps, there is no point in annual organization of such exhibitions?

Ye.А. Korchevoy. Indeed, agricultural machinery engineering is a branch that produces the machinery with a high added value. And you can’t produce a product like combine harvester or tractor offhand in one year. But it’s quite possible to implement some new components into a machine. Annually, our machine test stations are testing up to one hundred and fifty new technical implementations. Nevertheless, we are realizing a competition of innovative machinery at this year’s exhibition similarly named AGROSALON. We do have something to show.

Starting from 2010, we are planning to move to the international format of realization of the exhibition once in two years. This is an optimal mode both for manufacturers who can show their real specialties and for visitors who will not have to spend time for frequent trips to Moscow.

Correspondent. Will there be any surprises?

Ye.А. Korchevoy. Yes, indeed! For the first time we will raffle the main prize of AGROSALON, the Russian jeep “Patriot” among the registered visitors of the exhibition (please note). I think any manager will be pleased to have such a car. We also have smaller prizes, but they are also very respectable. However, there is no point talking; you’d better come and see that AGROSALON is really a crisis-free area.