According to Laura Biason, Deputy Director of GIMAV, the Association of Italian manufacturers and suppliers of machinery, equipment and special products for glass processing, Italy is one of the main overseas suppliers of machinery to the United States. The figures were up this year according to the recently-published report by MAPI (Manufacturers’ Alliance for Productivity and Innovation): in the first semester, glass processing machinery, at +63.2% over the same period last year, was the fastest-growing machinery sector.

This preference for Italian-made machinery could be felt and was fully confirmed at GlassBuild America in September, when 20 Italian Gimav members and one non-member company arrived in Atlanta and attracted a “considerable amount of interest”, pointed out Gimav deputy director, Laura Biason. With “very good” attendance by very interested trade people who also intended to close deals at the exhibition, “the 1,000 sqm area occupied by the Gimav group exhibition was a crowd-puller, with a wide range of Italian machinery and products on display where potential buyers could see and touch the new proposals”.

Italian companies are so innovative that “we were very proud of going overseas as a Gimav group exhibition – Biason pointed out – because the producers of glass processing machinery, products and accessories offer the highest levels of quality and innovation that the world expects from Italian products”.