Mr. Stephen Wanner, President Of The International Industrial Textiles Association (IFAI)

IFAI (International Industrial Textiles Association) will set up an exhibition of industrial textiles in Asia, making it another powerful professional institution to actively explore the Asian market.

Mr. Stephen Wanner, President of IFAI, said that industrial textiles have always been a vibrant sector. Now Asia is developing into a huge market with huge consumption potential.

A professional exhibition in Asia is a rich mining area for the pursuit of "gold" in the global industrial textiles enterprises.

Century old reputation

Reporter: could you tell me what kind of organization IFAI is?

Stephen Wanner: IFAI is a non-profit industry association with nearly 100 years of history.

The association is a member of the association, with more than 2000 members from more than 50 countries, most of which are in the United States, followed by Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Mexico, China, Australia and so on.

IFAI is based in Roseville, Minnesota, USA. It has established IFAI branch in Canada, Japan and New Zealand. It has representative offices in Europe and China, serving global members.

IFAI publishes 7 magazines and 4 professional industry lists covering the important application market of the whole industry. It hosts industry exhibition activities, and has an internationally recognized Competition Award - IAA (International Achievement Award).

We also conduct market research, draw up new product performance standards on behalf of the industry, and provide members with various training programs.

Reporter:

Stephen Wanner: IFAI holds IFAI Expo Americas every year - the international industrial textiles (Americas) exhibition and seminar, the largest industrial textiles exhibition in North America, with about 400 exhibitors and 7000 registered audiences from 3000 countries and more than 60 countries and regions in the world.

A geotechnical synthetic material exhibition will be held in two years. The IFAI Forum on high-end industrial textiles will be held in Europe every year and many small and medium-sized activities will be held around the world.

In 2008, IFAI held training in North America automotive material supply chain market system and product standard in Haining, Zhejiang.

In March 2011, IFAI will host the IFAI Expo Asia 2011 - 2011 International Industrial Textiles (Asia) exhibition and Symposium in Singapore for the first time.

The Asian exhibition will be copied in the form of the Americas exhibition, but the scale will be relatively small in the first few sessions.

Reporter: so what's the actual effect of exhibitors and viewers who trust IFAI so much?

Stephen Wanner: according to our survey statistics, about 91% of the audience highly recognised the quality of the exhibition, 92%.

Last year's IFAI Exp came from 6 enterprises in Haining warp knitting industrial park, Zhejiang, China, as well as Beijing Wuzhou Jia Tai, Shanghai Shen Da Bao, Jiangsu Hengli Chemical fiber and Zhejiang top Chinese enterprises and Hong Kong and Taiwan enterprises.

These exhibitors generally reflected that after returning to China, they had been busy with orders placed on the exhibition.

In the IAA held in the same period, the Shanghai sun film company, Beijing Newman lemon Meng company and the company of Shanghai film company were awarded the award of membrane structure category.

40% share of attraction

Reporter: what do you think of the development trend of the international industrial textiles industry?

Stephen Wanner: the development opportunity of industrial textiles is exhilarating, and the speed of technological progress is amazing.

New applications of industrial textiles are developed every day.

The construction of membrane materials has brought the architectural imagination to the extreme. Other construction industrial textiles have provided shelter for victims of earthquakes and other disasters.

Industrial textiles can not only be used for human body, but also can help people to protect the environment and provide safe drinking water resources.

The textile industry in the United States is also divided into three main branches: clothing, household and industrial use.

10 years ago, the industrial textiles market was the smallest branch, and now it has become the largest branch. The ratio of industrial textiles to textile industry is 42%.

Industrial textiles have the greatest potential for development in the United States.

Reporter: the application domain of industrial textiles is extensive, and the target market of enterprises is different. How does IFAI provide effective service for enterprises and get recognition from enterprises?

Stephen Wanner: industrial textiles have many application markets.

IFAI is divided into 11 sub branches according to product classification.

They are geosynthetics, automotive, safety and protection, shading, tents, light buildings, marine, covered canvas, textile digital printing, narrow-band seat belts, and leisure home furnishings.

If a sufficient number of members are interested in a new particular market, IFAI will create a new branch for this market.

IFAI as a multi-dimensional platform, through branch associations, industry directory and professional magazines, the global buyers can find the presence of member units when searching for demand products, and enable members to understand the latest developments in the industry, technological development and product innovation through these channels.

IFAI also helps global members to match resources, saving time and energy for members.

For example, a member of a Chinese Taiwan company needs to buy equipment for processing and manufacturing membrane materials for construction, and has been contacted with the representative office of China. The representative office of China has contacted the corresponding Chinese manufacturers to find out the supply situation, but its equipment has not yet met the production requirements. The Representative Office of China has contacted the general information center of the United States, and finally helped members to lock in several suitable American suppliers.

The whole process takes only a week.

In addition, IFAI members can put IFAI logo patterns on the company's website. Because IFAI has a good reputation all over the world, some buyers will have a good first impression of their products, thus facilitating trade negotiations with member units.

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Confidence in the first Asian exhibition

Reporter: in 2011, IFAI first tried to organize exhibitions in Asia and organized the Singapore exhibition. What was its original intention and purpose? {page_break}

Stephen Wanner: we expect to be a substantial global industry organization that helps members and industry companies around the world.

The mission of IFAI is to promote technological progress of industrial textiles and help end product manufacturers to process quality products, and to export opportunities and exchange information for countries.

Singapore is chosen because there are no other similar exhibitions in Southeast Asia. IFAI feels the need for a comprehensive exhibition of weaving, nonwovens, knitting and synthetic materials.

Although Singapore does not have a very developed industrial background, its location in Southeast Asia is centered and has the hardware basis for holding high-quality exhibitions.

Moreover, Singapore's political and economic environment is stable, and businessmen from many neighboring countries are willing to negotiate business in Singapore.

Reporter: is this a prediction of IFAI's confidence in the market development of Asian industrial textiles?

Stephen Wanner: Yes.

The market for sunshade, membrane structure and marine industrial textiles in Southeast Asia is more prominent, and the demand for digital textile printing and leisure industrial textiles is increasing year by year.

In recent years, the rapid increase of government infrastructure investment has made the geosynthetics market also grow. At the same time, military and protective and intelligent textiles are developing steadily.

On the whole, the Asian industrial textiles market, especially Southeast Asia, is showing an acceleration trend.

Reporter: what are the advantages of IFAI compared with other exhibiting agencies?

Stephen Wanner: This is a good question.

IFAI will reinvest the surplus generated by successful exhibition into the industry project, which is an enduring advantage for our exhibition, such as raising the consumer's cognition of the advantages of industrial textiles processing products and organizing training programs for the industry.

The other two advantage is the principle of openness and fairness in IFAI.

The official website of the IFAI exhibition adopts the ESHOW system. With the receipt of each exhibition contract and deposit by the IFAI headquarters, the ESHOW system will display the yellow screen booked by the exhibitors. When receiving full payment, the display color will turn red; the remaining blue will be an optional stage.

When the mouse stays on each booth for a few seconds, the system displays the exhibitor information (if it is yellow or red) or booth size information (if it is blue).

This ensures that people in every corner of the world who want to take part in the IFAI show know that the information is public - WYSIWYG.

IFAI Expo has been held for nearly 70 sessions. It is a long exhibition.

In the first few sessions, we established the credit scoring system: the higher the number of exhibitors and the higher the credit points of exhibitors, the better the right to choose the superior booth.

Therefore, at the second day of each exhibition, the sales offices are crowded with people. They choose the next exhibitors of the next exhibition stand according to the order of credit scores.

In order to be fair to the Asia Pacific exhibitors who have joined the exhibitors in recent years, IFAI has opened up "hatchery area" especially in the advantageous location, so that those exhibitors who are first exhibitors will have the chance to get a good exhibition location.