A selected group of Italian textile machinery manufacturers led an institutional and trade mission in April 2019, in Thailand. It was organised by the Italian Trade Agency (ITA) and by ACIMIT, the Association of Italian Textile Industry Manufacturers. ACIMIT’s promotes the Italian textile machinery sector and supports its activity, mainly abroad. The mission’s programme included meeting with various local trade association representatives and industry training centres, as well as visits to textile companies and the country’s universities with a textile vocation, according to ACIMIT. The visits to the Thailand textile institute proved especially interesting, a government body that manages planning, development, and support for the textile industry, as well as at the Faculty of Industrial Textiles and Fashion Design of Rajamangala University of Technology in Bangkok. Six ACIMIT member companies participated in the mission namely, Brazzoli, Ferraro, Laip, Ms Printing Solutions, Sicam, and Stalam. “We had a dual goal: to get to know the local textile manufacturing sector’s level of technology and its current needs, and to assess possible forms of collaboration and partnerships between Italy’s textile machinery industry and entities within the Country providing specific textile training. In Thailand, the textile sector is undergoing a deep rooted transformation. There’s a demand for machinery that can cut back not just on production costs, but also on the environmental impact of textile manufacturing,” ACIMIT president Alessandro Zucchi said. The demand for machinery by Thai textile manufacturers is moving towards technologies capable of reducing production costs and increasing production capacity. In 2018, the value of Italian exports to Thailand amounted to €8 million. “I believe the outcome of this mission was on the whole very positive. We allowed local entrepreneurs to become aware of the latest Italian technology in the sector, while at the same time laying the foundations for a more rewarding partnership with local authorities,” Zucchi said.
