The 28th edition of the biennial event of XYLEXPO, a fair dedicated to wood technologies, which was suspended during the pandemic and resumed in 2022, ended last Friday.
Expectations were low, justified by a general crisis of all trade fairs in the world: Fordaq alone participated in 10 fairs in the first 6 months of 2024 with mixed but never exciting results.
An epochal downsizing of the event was immediately noticed, as we went from the 7 pavilions of 12 years ago to just 2 pavilions and, what's more, occupied by a large and aggressive group of Chinese exhibitors led by the giants Nanxing and KDT Distributed , the latter, from Masterwood of Rimini.
The great absences of the big names in European industry were evident and worrying: first of all BIESSE, which is always jealous of its Biesse Open Houses at home and does not however seem to be the solution for the accounts in times of crisis, on the contrary, therefore CEFLA, HOMAG , WEINIG: these big names once grabbed, together with SCM Group, a pavilion each!
Then absent PRIMULTINI, ARTIGLIO and the entire initial processing group together with the forestry machinery.
The motivation is still unknown and is the result of an era in which associationism and cohorting give way to accounting figures and fear. An era in which to meet, discuss and preserve the values created over time, whether the economy is doing well but, above all, when it is going badly, they do not stimulate companies but rather make them flee.
Acimall reports that 2023 ended with -23% of turnover compared to 2022, but we must consider that 2022 closed with 2.6 billion in turnover, extremely positive thanks to the "Industry 4.0" state provision which helped Italian customers to increase turnover for mechanical engineering companies at +12% and also exports at +4.6%.
Therefore praise goes to the 270 exhibitors present in these 4 days (perhaps a little too many in times of crisis) and the 11,288 visitors who animated, so to speak, the event (16,000 in 2022).
Visitors were able to see the excellence of small and medium-sized Italian and foreign wood technology companies, in particular the production of optimizers, edgebanders and numerically controlled machines which are now able to meet the needs of space, economy and productivity for small artisans making them as productive as large industries.
First of all SCM Group which with Routech is enjoying great success (In video the impressive lamellar plant at Holzbau Sud), SALVADOR with the latest generation optimizers for the wood and pallet industry, STORTI undisputed leader of pallet machines with a an increasingly young and dynamic team, GCM is the only point of reference for quality pellet machines to counter the Chinese presence together with NAZZARENO, the group of producers of drying ovens BIG on DRY, NARDI etc but above all the CNC systems and drilling machines for panels COMEC / CAMAM specialized in door systems, ALBERTI + VIESSE + Bi MATIC creators of a Lot 1 with extreme performance and compact dimensions which we will talk about soon, QUICKWOOD with the smoothing of grooved surfaces with vibrating wheels or brushes systems within everyone's reach, SARMAX and CM MACCHINE always committed to creating the perfect machine for impregnation, roughing and planing for carpentry and wood joinery, all alongside the big names such as GIARDINAGROUP, COSTA and many others.
SCM Routech plant at Holzbau Sud
The Chinese collective and the two large Chinese manufacturers Nanxing and KDT brought machines and tools suitable for any process, especially for large industries, so much so that some people murmured that the event should be renamed Xi Lex Poh in the Chinese way.
Many operators remain perplexed by the aggressiveness of these Chinese industries, which work on the thin border of price dumping in the order of 20-50% less than the price of the same Italian and European machines. Often also playing on the false CE marking, but we hope these are just the inferences of worried detractors, given that our customs work very well for wooden products.