Germany - Even now, in the middle of Europe’s economic and financial crisis, the German domestic market is showing to be as solid as a rock. The economic forecast for 2013 remains positive despite a slight cooling. ZOW – the Supply Fair for Furniture Industry & Interior Design from 18-21 February 2013 – provides an ideal presentation and contact forum for international furniture component suppliers seeking direct access to Germany’s lucrative furniture market. Organisers Clarion Events Deutschland expect the next show to attract 13,500 trade visitors as well as 490 national and international exhibitors.

ZOW is an established B2B platform for the supplier industry at the heart of Ostwestfalen-Lippe – Germany’s No. 1 furniture region and Europe’s largest furniture cluster. Just as the furniture industry is getting down to place orders, the supply fair from 18-21 February 2013 at the Bad Salzuflen Exhibition Centre will be presenting new products, materials as well as process ideas for furniture production and interior design. Whereas comparable trading platforms in Germany only take place every two years and not until late in the ordering year, ZOW guarantees to give the industry a compact and concentrated supplier platform for the German sales market every year at the beginning of the purchasing cycle.

ZOW benefits from its proximity to the core furniture market with its stakeholders from industry, research and associations. Internationally renowned furniture and kitchen manufacturers from all over Germany regularly attend ZOW with their management teams. With the focus on personal and direct contact between visitors and exhibitors, it lays the foundation for next season’s business transactions. Oliver Stern, Directeur Commercial Industrie, Compagnie Française Du Panneau (France), was there at the 2012 event, not as a trade visitor but for the first time wearing an exhibitor’s hat: “ZOW is the annual venue where we meet customers, suppliers, colleagues and friends. This is the first time we are exhibiting because we specifically want to place two new products on the market. The atmosphere is so refreshingly friendly, and the organisation impeccable.”

Business activity in Germany set to remain stable for 2013

The prospects for the German furniture industry remain positive. At the Annual Business Press Conference of the Association of the German Furniture Industries (VDM) at the end of August, Association President Elmar Duffner had some glowing figures to report for the first half of 2012: at € 8.5 billion, German furniture manufacturer sales were up by 4.5%, “once again taking them well above the previous year’s level”. This was mainly down to buoyant domestic sales fired by private consumption. “Consumers in Germany are the mainstay of our industry with its small and medium-sized businesses”, Duffner emphasized. For the whole of 2012, he is expecting the industry’s turnover to grow by around 3%.

Particularly for the kitchen furniture market, the Verband der deutschen Küchenmöbelindustrie e.V. (Association of the German Kitchen Furniture Industry, VdDK, Herford) expects 2013 to be a good year too. In a press release issued at VdDK’s annual press conference at the end of September, Chairman Stefan Waldenmaier stated: “The slowdown in business at home in 2013 will literally only be a ‘slowing’ and not a recession. The German market is too robust and too stable for that. We too are noticing a continuation in the clear trend towards kitchens with greater intrinsic value. This is not only something our member companies’ analyses suggest, it is also confirmed by figures from the association’s internal order statistics.”

So, altogether a good omen for the ZOW fair that’s being held in 2013 under the banner: “ZOW – Your Key to the Market”.

Up-to-the-minute information on ZOW is available from:

www.zow.de/en

Youtube/zowfair

Twitter English: @zow_trade_fair

Source: Clarion Events Deutschland GmbH