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 "Italy & POLSKA: CRESCENDO"
 Warsaw - October 21st / 29th, 2000


For the Jubilee Year, Italy and the Ministry of Foreign Trade in cooperation with the National Trade Office chose Poland as the symbol country for the organization of a great event, that is a fair that was meant to present the Italyn economic system and to improve the commercial relations between the two countries (which are, by the way, already excellent).

During the last ten years Poland proved to be able to face a fast economic growth and to attract foreign capitals and investments that reached 40 billions USD. In 1999 Italy was its second partner (Germany was the first with an export rate of 25%) controlling 9.23% of the exportations and 14.41% of the import. Trade exchanges between the two countries reached the amount of 6.1 billions lire last year. However, despite its constant growth, Poland is a country where both inflation and unemployment rates are still high (10%), where the average income reached 441,7 USD in April 2000 and which is still affected by the Russian crisis of 1998. Nevertheless, an increase of 5% is expected for the year 2000 and a further step is likely thanks to the historical possibility to become part of UE in 2003.
Consequently, exhibitors, operators and representatives of the institutions had many expectations from this fair. They aimed at creating tighter trade relationships, at developing even more the mutual cooperation in the field of SMEs and at extending the inter-regional collaboration. This last point has become fundamental after the Polish administrative reform of 1999 when the Voivodati charged the local authorities of many responsibilities, for example of the Foreign Relations. Accordingly, over 300 exhibitors (companies, public and private bodies) representing several different productive fields, from mechanical products to commodities and agro-industrial products, decided to take part in this event.

Five halls were built and among them the one managed by Federlegno - Arredo was specially dedicated to furniture and interior decoration. There were 54 leader companies exposing, representing all the furniture typologies, from classic to contemporary style, from kitchens to sofas and complements. The presence of 13 Tuscan companies is worth mentioning. Their participation was coordinated by Centro Sperimentale del furniture e dell'furnishing of Poggibonsi in cooperation with the government of Regione Toscana.
Despite the great evolution that Poland experienced since the end of the eighties, the main problem of this field is still distribution. Some of the exhibitors have already a sound distribution network in Poland, but most of them were there in order to introduce their products in a new country and to understand their real opportunities.
In fact, up until ten years ago there were only low-end products which were very little functional and lacked aspects such as design and innovation, but nowadays average families (Poland has more than 40 millions inhabitants) spend about 5% of their income for furniture. On the other hand, higher level families can spend until 15% of their income for furniture and interior decoration products (data published by Il Sole 24, Thursday 24th October 2000). Purchase of furniture is at the 7th place in the average level families' priorities and represents 24% of house expenses.

Furniture market is obviously connected with building and real estate industry and it is known that nowadays Warsaw is the biggest building site in Europe after Berlin. Despite this fact, it is necessary to remember that flat building has represented only a small percentage of the building industry. The trend of the furniture market can be accordingly explained on this basis. However, the situation is expected to improve at least until 2005. In fact, over 600,000 new flats should be built and furthermore over 150,000 should be restored. Consequently, Poland should become a good market for the exportation of furniture made in Italy.
Unfortunately, the bad organization of the show "Italy & Polka: crescendo" and its failure affected the exhibitors a lot. There were very few visitors. In fact, specialised operators had not been informed properly that there was one hall where only furniture and furnishings were exposed and in addition the advertising campaign had been poor and scarcely incisive for private consumers. Accordingly, exhibitors missed the opportunity to understand Polish market and Warsaw consumers' attitude and tastes. There are many reasons for this failure. First of all the advertising campaign was inadequate, lacking and badly organised: for example the fair was promoted only as a cultural event. Second, the place where the show took place was completely mistaken: the hippodrome is far from the town centre and buses and public means of transport did not reach it. As a result, the participation in this fair was a negative experience and our disappointment is even sharper when we compare this event with those organised in Beijing and Buenos Aires some years ago.

Text by:
Letizia Salvadori

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In cooperation with:
M.Angeles Fernández Alvarez
Elena Granchi
Sonia Morini





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