METAL PORTUGAL by AIMMAP, the brand that represents the Portuguese metal industry, will be present again at Mindtech 2021 to showcase the Portuguese industry and its international potential.
The Association of Metallurgical, Metalworking and Allied Industries of Portugal (AIMMAP) is the body that represents companies in the metal sector at national and international level.
Founded in 1957, AIMMAP was born with the aim of supporting innovation, training, cooperation and internationalization of the metal industry in Portugal.
Sofia Veloso, Aimmap’s Communication Manager: “The importance of the metal sector for Portugal’s national economy and the excellent performance of its companies in international trade is unquestionable. In the midst of a year marked by the pandemic, this industry set the best mark ever for METAL PORTUGAL’s exports in March”.
In the first quarter of the year, the sector’s exports in Portugal amounted to 1,926 million euros, representing an unprecedented year-on-year growth of 46%. These figures more than offset the year-on-year fall recorded in March 2020, which then reached nearly 23.4%.
This remarkable growth trajectory that the sector has been experiencing is undoubtedly due to the combination of a number of factors, from the enormous accumulated experience and know-how of the companies, the strategic vision and enormous resilience of many entrepreneurs, as well as the role of AIMMAP, which seeks to harmonize and develop innovation and internationalization strategies in a sector with very specific specificities.
AIMMAP’s role in Portugal
AIMMAP develops an activity focused on guiding its members towards greater competitiveness, innovation and internationalization, promoting and encouraging the sustainable development of the metallurgical and metal-mechanical sector through technical and technological support, professional training and logistics.
In this path, AIMMAP and the companies of the sector count on the support of a set of referent entities:CATIM – Center of Technological Support to the Metallurgical IndustryCENFIM – Center of professional training for the metallurgical industry:
- CATIM – Technological Support Center for the Metallurgical Industry
- CENFIM – Professional Training Center for the Metallurgical Industry
- CERTIF – Association for Certification
- CIP – Confederação Empresarial de Portugal (Portuguese Business Confederation)
- PRODUTECH – Association of Sustainable Production Technology
- INEGI – Institute of Science and Innovation in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Engineering.
- FELUGA – Federação Luso Galaica de Industriais Metalúrgicos (Luso Galician Federation of Metallurgical Industries)
- Orgalim – European Technological Industries
Metal Portugal as an international brand
Aware of this excellence of a sector that breaks records every day, AIMMAP, in recent years, has worked on the international presence of the sector under the brand METAL PORTUGAL, which brings together the diversity of a sector that continues to grow steadily and continuously.
AIMMAP has been concerned with contributing to increasing the competitiveness of the companies in the sector and enhancing the national offer in an increasingly global and competitive market, seeking an intelligent and effective diversification of markets. In fact, the pandemic has further accelerated this process of market diversification, with small drops in the more traditional European markets, and growth in new markets outside Europe.
In 2019, Mindtech became part of AIMMAP’s internationalization plan that includes the organization of business missions considered strategic, as well as collective promotion and participation in the most important subcontracting fairs such as Hannover Messe in Germany, Global Industrie – MIDEST in France, ESEF in the Netherlands, ELMIA Subcontractor in Sweden, Subcontratación and MetalMadrid in Spain, among others.
“Mindtech is increasingly becoming a reference fair in the metal sector in the Spain – Portugal – Morocco axis and assumes a growing importance for Metal Portugal, especially because it is located in a region that, especially for companies from the north of Portugal, is a natural market. In a scenario of economic recovery like the current one, geographical proximity will be a very important argument and Mindtech will have an important impact for the Portuguese companies that will participate in this fair“.
AIMMAP continues, for another year, to collaborate with its Galician counterpart in the promotion of Mindtech, where Metal Portugal companies will undoubtedly occupy an increasingly central and prominent place and where they will find new business opportunities.
“MINDTECH will help to improve the global positioning of the Portuguese metal sector and to raise the perception of quality and innovation in an increasingly global and competitive world. At the Metal Industry & Technologies International Trade Fair, Portuguese companies will showcase the best and most advanced products manufactured in Portugal, positioning Metal Portugal companies on the map of qualified global suppliers”.