Markets: the prompt reply of italian eyewear industries
This is a highly complex moment for the economy, with evident difficulties that have yet to be overcome, sector businesses, above all small and mid-sized ones, require support interventions.
This is why ANFAO, the Italian Optical Goods Manufacturers' Association, in addition to striving to increase institutional awareness and guarantee targeted sector measures, has decided to take direct action to support its member companies.
Promoted and financed by ANFAO with the sponsorship of MIDO, the International Optics, Optometry, and Ophthamological Show, this innovation is an extraordinary plan to promote internationalization, which will allow associate companies to participate collectively in the most strategic sector fairs to be held between next September and the end of this year.
“ANFAO has invested in and is committed to promoting the sector on multiple fronts. Some petitions presented to Institutions were partially granted, like the request to recognise the value of research and development in samples and the attempt to facilitate access to credit, while others are still pending and continue to be the object of our lobbying activities. In this context, where priorities clearly do not depend on us and have not been defined, - sustains the Cavaliere del Lavoro Vittorio Tabacchi, newly confirmed President of ANFAO – it was necessary to propose something concrete and effective in the short term. This is why we came up with and financed an extraordinary plan for associate companies so that they can act in this delicate moment and continue being present on the main and most interesting world markets.”
The extraordinary promotional programme will start next September in Rome, where the ANFAO associate firms who have joined will participate in the Vision Business Forum, the show-conference promoted by Assogruppi Ottica in collaboration with ANFAO and MIDO, and with the participation of Federottica.
“Market presence must begin with Italy. The Rome date, which will see, in addition to abundant participation of frame manufacturers, the participation of all the main lens manufacturers, - continues Vittorio Tabacchi – will be an opportunity, above all for small and mid-sized companies that have not yet attained a structured and organised distribution in our country, to present themselves to the entire Italian optics sector with absolute visibility and an opportunity to meet with all the leading sector operators."
After Rome, there will be many opportunities for associate firms to participate in important fairs through the ANFAO promotional plan: Vision Expo West in Las Vegas, IOFT in Tokyo (as always, in partnership with the Italian Foreign Trade Institute), Hong Kong Optical Fair, Vision Canada in Calgary, and Optik Istanbul.
Internationalization has always been a fundamental value of Italian eyewear companies, allowing them to consolidate their position worldwide.
Paolo Cannicci, Vice Presidente of ANFAO and President of the Internationalization Commission, underlines the importance of this plan: “in addition to traditional markets like the United States, we are careful to consider potential and more promising markets. For this reason, we are heading to the Canadian fair; Japan continues to be an opportunity to propose high-end products with a strong sense of innovation and technology in a market that has always manifested its appreciation of such attributes; Turkey, instead, serves as a testing ground for the receptiveness of the entire Middle East market. Finally, we will be present in Hong Kong, which has confirmed itself as the crossroads of Asia, in the area dedicated to design to testify to the excellence of eyewear Made in Italy.”
Attention to emerging markets is also manifested by an appointment that ANFAO will set in India, in collaboration with the Italian Foreign Trade Institute, mostly likely in early 2010.
“This will be a business mission in a country where Italian presence in the sector is still barely structured but may represent a considerable user basin for our products. We will accompany a group of ANFAO firms interested in this opportunity - explains Paolo Cannicci – to meet with leading Indian buyers and distributors, in the hopes of laying the foundations for profitable trade relations.”
As part of the extraordinary promotional plan promoted and financed by ANFAO, above and beyond sector fair participation, there is also a special project: thanks to an extraordinary initiative of the Italian Foreign Trade Institute, which chose Germany as a market where Italian fashion and accessories would be promoted, an opportunity has arisen to organise a show-event in Berlin based on the theme of Italian eyewear history, from its dawning until today.
Finally, as part of the ordinary promotion programme, which ANFAO has always dedicated to internationalisation, another appointment on the calendar before December 2009 is the ANFAO and MIDO participation at the SILMO, the Parisian eyewear fair.
