To a new level

SibWoodExpo - совместный проект «Сибэкспоцентра» и Дойче Мессе

Hannover, Mexico City, Guangzhou, Irkutsk. The last one rightly took its place among a number of cities, where well-known specialists in the field of forest use come together annually. The fact is that Sibexpocentre has concluded an agreement with the German company Deutsche Messe AG - one of the leading organisers of industrial exhibitions around the world. Thereby the traditional ‘Forest Management’ exhibition not only changed its name, having turned into SibWoodExpo, but also began to develop into a platform for meetings and negotiations between the largest Russian and foreign industry companies, organisations and experts.

Looking at the banner with the name of the event, you unintentionally mark out four of its or-ganisers. To already familiar Sibexpocentre OJSC, Government of Irkutsk Region and the regional Ministry of Timber Complex one more added - Deutsche Messe AG. Why a German company founded in 1947, one of the largest in Germany and one of the most important organisers of industrial exhibitions and fairs in the world joined the organisers? ‘Siberia is very famous at the international level as one of the richest with wood regions in the world, - Svetlana Fedoseyeva, Director General of Deutsche Messe RUS says. – Foreign companies increasingly realize that to strengthen business in the field of woodworking it is necessary to come to the regions where it is represented. It is no secret that this is not Moscow, that is why we are here, in the heart of Russia's forestry industry - Irkutsk Region.’

‘Strongly impressed by the event’

Participation of the companies from abroad is not new for the ‘Forest Management’ exhibition. At the first exhibition which Sibexpocentre has organised in the fall of 1994 in Ust-Ilimsk exhib-itors from China, Mongolia, Finland, Sweden and Japan were presented. And two years later, when the event took place already in Irkutsk, several contracts between the foreign enterprises and local businessmen were already concluded. In total for lifetime of the exhibition more than two thousand companies from the different countries of the world have participated in it, and about 500 thousand people became visitors. But for the first time the German company, leader in the branch, acts as one of organisers of the exhibition. It is, by the way, one of the reasons why the ‘Forest Management’ changed its name, having turned into SibWoodExpo. ‘In fact it is a ‘pilot’ of the huge project which will be developed since 2019, – Andrey Shapovalov, Director General of Sibexpocentre OJSC notes. – But already today it represents a platform on which joint work of our German partners, regional government, Sibexpocentre and participants of the exhibition begins.’

The way to its creation was not as simple as it might seem. Negotiations with the German side began almost five years ago. ‘They went for a long time, but for that there were objective reasons which do not depend on us, – Mr. Shapovalov emphasizes. – As a result in May of this year the agreement was signed, and we started working together. We have every chance with the help of German partners to grow up on the basis of SibWoodExpo an event that takes place for the first time in this format – a major international exhibition.’

In spite of the fact that we are talking about the pilot project, the list of exhibitors already im-presses. In addition to well-known Russian enterprises (for example, the Ilim Group) and the organisations like Association of Timber Loggers and Timber Exporters of Irkutsk Region num-ber of participants included the famous foreign producers and suppliers of equipment: Swedish company Kvarnstrands, Finnish companies Jartek and Veisto Oy, German LINCK and EWD. Total amount is 36 participants. ‘This morning I have communicated to many international exhibi-tors, – Mr. Alexander Wurst, First Vice-President of Deutsche Messe AG tells. – For example, with the Weinig Company which is also one of key clients of LIGNA. They are very impressed with the event and established very good business connections here. So they liked the show, and now they are here with their regional trade partners.’

Participation of such enterprises is a sign of the high status of SibWoodExpo, because the men-tioned above LIGNA is the largest European timber industry exhibition which Deutsche Messe AG every couple of years organises in Hanover. It is characterized by only several figures: 135 thousand square metres of exhibition space, 1,500 exhibiting companies and 93 thousand visi-tors in 2017. ‘Last time we had delegations of very high level from Russia, Brazil, China and Malaysia, – Mr. Wurst reports. – And on the world map of our events devoted to wood pro-cessing besides Hanover there is Mexico City and Guangzhou. And we really proud to be present in Irkutsk as it is very important market which we really want to support and develop it attracting together with organisers of the exhibition as much visitors as it possible.’

Way from the exhibition to the strategy

The status of SibWoodExpo is also emphasized by the business programme. In particular it includes the third Regional Forest Forum (the previous two were held during the ‘Forest Man-agement’ exhibitions). And on it, considering the problems and prospects of the industry, for the first time the strategy for the development of the forest complex of Irkutsk Region was openly presented, incidentally developed with the direct participation of the world-famous consulting company McKinsey. ‘Let's start by reviewing the current positions, - Nikolai Kovalchuk, Deputy Minister of the Forest Complex of the region begins the presentation. – In Irkutsk Region there are large volumes of forest resources. Annual allowable cutting rate reaches 73.6 million cubic metres which make 10.5% of the total allowable cutting rate in Russia. The felling volume on the issued sites - 26.8 million cubic metres per year, 34.8 million cubic metres which make 15% of the timber harvesting in the whole country is harvested including cutting for linear-type facilities, geological exploration and so on. At the same time the share of the forestry complex in the gross regional product of the region is only 4.2%, while the revenues to the budget are 4.8%.’

With all the wealth of resources in terms of their rational and most effective use, the region is still off the pace – behind the Komi Republic and Arkhangelsk Region. However, the implementation of those measures included to the strategy should improve this situation: by 2030, the export of raw roundwood will disappear as a phenomenon, and the volume of production of high-quality sawn timber, wood boards, pellets, pulp and other products will grow significantly. ‘There are a lot of things which within such exhibitions are visually and very quickly interchanged and then go into a boring decision-making process at the document level, - Ruslan Bolotov, First Deputy Governor, Head of the Government of Irkutsk Region concludes. – That means that everything begins beautifully, then there is a pause while we turn these things into government resolutions. But finally they give an effect that can really be felt on the territory of our region.’

The target indicators of strategy in many respects are constructed due to the plans of domestic enterprises: for example, the Ilim Group has projects on expansion of production in Bratsk and Ust-Ilimsk. But in the Government of Irkutsk Region and in the entire forest complex of the re-gion there are also expectations on cooperation with foreign experts which is also promoted by the SibWoodExpo exhibition. ‘My company does not sell anything, but it conveys knowledge to others, – Mr. Ruediger Staib, representative of the German Center for Forest Work and Tech-nology KWF GmbH says. – So, we work in the field of health protection and safety, and in this direction we can cooperate with the universities, with the government, with the ministry of forestry.’

Russian soil for German ideas

During the ‘New Trends and Technologies in the Timber Industry Complex. Bioenergetics’ scien-tific and practical conference Mr. Staib talks about the best practices of Germany, which are extremely useful both for Russia in general and for Irkutsk Region separately. About 5% of energy consumption in the country is covered due to wastes of timber processing complex, and further, as renewable energy develops, its share will only grow. Afterwards Sergey Herzen, representative of LINCK Company demonstrates the sawmill line, delivered a year and a half back to Norway. On the screen milling and profiling machines with speed and accuracy inaccessible to a man, consistently turn the log stripped of bark at first into a profiled log and then into boards. Scanners ‘inspecting’ it at almost during all stages of this process ensure the absence of any defections. And only one operator manages such a complicated mechanism.

While manufacturers demonstrate high-tech equipment and processing companies talk about plans on development, officials and experts discuss on the round tables the present and future of the industry in all its aspects. Discussion topics speak for themselves: ‘LesRegister. Dialogue of theorists with practitioners’, ‘Instruments of state support for stimulating innovation development of the timber processing complex’. On the open area woodcutters and woodcarv-ers compete. But the visitors of the exhibition are attracted not only by this. One of them is interested at representatives of the Kvarnstrands Company in molder knives ‘for homework’ - small-scale production of window frames and similar things.

In the conference hall, the entrance to which is a few metres from the stand, at the same time the participants of the youth platform ‘Future of the Siberian Forests’ come together. If you miss the reports with declared subject devoted to the current state of the timber industry complex, in its centre there is a solution of the case - business tasks - on the topic ‘Innovative products of the forestry complex’. The approach is extremely serious: we need to carefully analyze the forest products market, identify promising directions for the development of the processing industry in the region, assess sales opportunities, design the technology for production of a new product and predict the economic effect of the project. There is only an hour for work with experts and decision making, during 30 minutes all participants have to hold the presentations. And let the case remains an intellectual experiment, the ideas expressed can be used in real life.

Even more operative equipment

Preparation for SibWoodExpo-2019 has already begun. The dates are already set for September 10-13. The business programme is not created yet, but topics which will be covered are already known. First of all these are deep wood processing and high value-added production technologies. Besides, both exhibitors, and experts pay special attention to protection and res-toration of the woods. Fire control about the successes of which specialists of the Ministry of Timber Complex of Irkutsk Region told at the stand meeting visitors of the current exhibition – will also become one of subjects for discussion.

The format of presentation of new equipment and technologies for the industry for visitors and exhibitors will also change. Work in pavilions and on the open area is still here to stay, but it will be supplemented by Demoday - demonstration of technologies in real conditions, in a specially designated forest area. ‘We will conduct this kind of show for the first time in the Asian part of Russia, if not in the whole country,’ – Mr. Shapovalov emphasizes. It will be not only the demonstration of technologies - it was decided to hold a kind of competition, where the efficiency and other qualities of machines for harvesting and wood processing will be evaluated according to a special rating. ‘I expect that in the future we will have even more operating equipment,’ - Michael Bartos, Project Director of Deutsche Messe AG notes. - Now the exhibition is quite silent, but if you come to LIGNA, you will find out that it can be very noisy, because all this technique works, making the exposition more alive.’

Demonstration days are not the only one innovation. ‘In Europe, there is such a thing as B2B matchmaking - Director General of Sibexpocentre explains. - It gradually comes also to Russia. The idea is that representatives of companies that go to the exhibition can reserve time for a meeting with specialists who are in Irkutsk. We will take something like this from our partners from Deutsche Messe. We are ready to provide premises, multimedia facilities and everything else that is needed for this. We hope that this form of communication will allow the business to develop faster and better.’

The development of the entire Irkutsk Region will be facilitated by the fact that the SibWoodExpo exhibition and with it the entire region will be presented in Hanover during the LIGNA exposition. ‘Certainly, we will talk about the region and promote it on the global stage,’ – Ms. Fedoseyeva said. -‘Thus, it will become more recognizable and more companies engaged in the forest sector will begin to be interested in what is happening here and for the opportunities for business development.’ The SibWoodExpo exhibition, in turn, becomes part of the recognizable global brand, which confirms the high level of work of its organisers. Sibexpocentre thus acquires the status of a platform not only and not just of the exposition, but predominantly for exchange of experience and technologies of the leading manufacturers of equipment, forest processors and world-class specialists. In such a capacity it will act in 2019.