Dino Fenzi

At the opening of Glasstec 2008 two years ago, the entire world was in the midst of an economic-financial crisis which took many of us by surprise. The stimulating atmosphere of a large scale event like the Düsseldorf review temporarily insulated participants from what was happening in the world around them.

Since then we have all been through two difficult years, and as so many of the simple prophets had predicted, the banking crisis evolved into a general economic crisis that did not spare any sectors. The hardest hit sector involved the manufacturing industries in the most industrialized western countries, a paradoxical result of the free trade decisions made several years prior, aimed at totally opening the global market without taking into account the ramifications in local markets.

In the meantime, the crisis took two distinctly different paths. In addition to the spotty geographical nature of the crisis, where some economies suffered greatly, others witnessed the opening of new opportunities, also on a social front.  So the collapse of the banking sector, the industrial sector, and finally the public debt of sovereign states, eventually produced dire consequences on the purchasing power of consumers and public spending for infrastructures.

So was it all negative, after all? From our little observatory distributed over nine production facilities spread across the world, the answer is no. The future definitely appears brighter and more reassuring than it has in these past two years.
The Düsseldorf event at the end of the month will surely confirm this, all with the necessary caution and far from easy superficial optimism. We believe that a continuous, constant recovery in the overall production sector, and in particular our sector, is currently underway.
We will be confidently expecting a large turnout, as always.