Remscheid, 25 November 2008 – The ninth triennial “German Technology Symposium & Exhibition” took place in Bangkok from November 8 – 11. This event was organized by the German-Thai Chamber of Commerce, in co-operation with the German Embassy to Thailand and the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau. In total, more than 200 companies and organizations participated in this event. The symposium offered some 60 sessions with special focus on topics such as the automotive sector, beverages, culture, education, energy and the environment, food processing technology, legal issues, lifestyle, management and marketing, material science, packaging, textiles and tourism.

Oerlikon was invited to host a textile session as there has been a strong interest from the Thailand Textile Institute to get an update on technology and market trends. For this purpose, Matthias Rudolph, Oerlikon Textile Far East, Oliver Lemke, Oerlikon Barmag, and Andreas Engelhardt, Oerlikon Saurer Arbon, met in Bangkok to deliver speeches.
Andreas Engelhardt opened the session with a brief introduction of Oerlikon followed by a presentation on textile market trends and recommendations for Thai textile industry. Afterwards, the technological aspect came into play with speeches of Matthias Rudolph addressing WINGS - Oerlikon Barmag’s new Winding INtegrated Godet Solution, and of Oliver Lemke focussing on eFK – an energy-conscious godet driven machine with emphasis on high yarn quality and economic texturing. This afternoon on textiles was well received and interesting discussions rounded this session.

On the next day, the Oerlikon team had an appointment at the Ministry of Industry with Mr. Damri Sukhotanang, Permanent Secretary, and Mr. Virat Tandaechanurat, Executive Director of Thailand Textile Institute. After briefly introducing Oerlikon, the focus was again on textiles. The domestic textile and clothing industry offers employment to more than 1 million people and earns more than US$7 billion in exports. To improve competitiveness and safeguard the textile workforce, a continuing upgrading of the local textile and clothing industry towards high-end markets appears essential. An indispensable pre-condition for a successful textil roadmap is the substantial lifting of the technology level, not only in cotton and manmade fiber spinning, but along the entire textile value chain to take advantage of state-of-the-art, productive and energy-saving equipment.