Hannover/Moscow. CeMAT RUSSIA ended on a high note on Friday, 27th September with the show's 197 exhibitors reporting they were extremely satisfied with the quality of the visitors they encountered and the new orders that flowed from those encounters. CeMAT RUSSIA 2013 ran from 24 to 27 September in Moscow, and if there's one clear message to have emerged from the show, it's this: intralogistics products are enjoying strong demand in Russia, thanks to the continued positive growth of the Russian economy. Interestingly, this demand is not just coming from locally owned firms; foreign-owned companies, too, are investing in intralogistics solutions in order to achieve their market objectives and enhance their competitiveness. These companies come from a wide range of backgrounds, including retail, wholesale, distribution, logistics and manufacturing.


Motivated buyers meet expert providers
This year's CeMAT RUSSIA put in an excellent performance, attracting 4,550 visitors and occupying 9,770 square meters (105,160 sq. ft) of exhibition space. It also generated record levels of serious inquiries from logistics managers, who expressed interest in investing in all kinds of logistics technologies everything from industrial trucks for automated warehouse systems to fully automated high-rack warehouses. There is a clear trend in the Russian intralogistics market towards automation. Some buyers are automating their existing systems by networking their reach trucks, narrow-aisle trucks, order pickers and the like with their warehouse management systems via mobile data terminals, while others are planning and building automated warehouses from the ground up.

Stefan Demmig, Managing Director of Jungheinrich Lift Truck OOO, Moscow, noted a marked increase in the number of decision makers compared with last year's CeMAT RUSSIA. "Our visitors came from an extremely wide range of industries. As in past years, their inquiries related to industrial trucks of virtually all kinds, with a strong focus on long-term leasing. But we also noticed a clear trend towards integrated solutions comprising warehouse management systems and our fleet management system. These are the areas in which we saw strong demand".

Alexander Edelmann, Head of Logistics at PSI Logistics, Moscow, also received a lot of project-specific inquiries at the fair. His statistics show a high percentage of visitors from the spare parts logistics segment. "In terms of company size across all sectors and segments, we encountered a significant number of small and medium enterprises".

Vanderlande Industries B.V (Veghel, Netherlands) noticed an equally strong level of interest in spare parts logistics among this year's CeMAT RUSSIA visitors. Frans J.B. Louwarts, Director, Vanderlande Russia: "The inquiries received at our stand centered around automated solutions for materials handling and order picking. As well as Russian visitors, we met a number of representatives of companies from the Ukraine and Belarus."

Efaflex is a German-based manufacturer of high-speed industrial doors. Its Sales Director, Christian Scheck, shares his thoughts on this year's fair: "Companies in Russia are investing in intralogistics, and this, not surprisingly, is also driving demand for high-speed doors. Weve noticed that our Russian customers, like their counterparts elsewhere, are now much more interested in minimizing the energy losses associated with opening and closing doors than they were a few years ago."

The final word on this year's show goes to Bernd Rohde, Deutsche Messe's project manager in charge of CeMAT: "This year we were able to write another chapter in the CeMAT RUSSIA success story. The fair proved highly effective at matching supply with demand. That said, the Russian market still harbors a great deal of untapped potential for the intralogistics industry. We therefore have every confidence that Russian demand for intralogistics solutions will be equally strong at the next CeMAT showcase in Hannover, Germany."

CeMAT RUSSIA is organized by Deutsche Messe AG subsidiary OOO Deutsche Messe RUS in partnership with the ITE Group Plc., a UK-based trade fair company with offices in eleven countries. Every year, ITE operates 50 exhibitions and conferences in Russia alone.

Visit the CeMAT RUSSIA website