/ INTERVIEW company’s requirements. After the Elgoibar-based Institute became attached to the University of the Basque Country in 2011, in September 2012 the approval was obtained which converts these studies into the first dual university grade in Spain. The Spanish-Chinese Professional Training Institute in Tian- jin, China (CSMC), an iniciative of AFM, was officially opened in November 2003 and is an excellent platform for compa- nies interested in conducting business in China, particularly in the Beijing-Tianjin region, one of the country’s main industrial areas. The CSMC is co-directed by José Ignacio Artamendi, who after ten years at the Institute is using his experience to provide backing to our companies in China. Since 2008, AFM has included a department for providing services to associate companies called the ‘Business & Development Spanish Department’, with a team of four people consisting of Mr. Artamendi, a fluent Spanish-spea- king chinese assistant, a moulds expert and a project mana- ger. This department enables the CSMC to offer, among others, the following services to AFM associate companies wishing to start up business in China: technical assistance service, search for information, organisation of trade missions and drawing up agendas, commercial support work, human resources, staff location and training or quality control/inspections. In June you organized your congress in San Sebastian. Could you explain your aims with the congress and give us some details about it?
Since it began in 1976, the Machine Tool and Manufacturing Technologies Congress has been the ideal meeting point for industry –manufacturers and users␣, research centers and universities to advance manufacturing technologies. 12 / AFM is coorganiser of the famous and unique trade fair in Spain for the machine-tool industry. Could you comment on this? AFM is a co-organiser together with BEC (Bilbao Exhibition Center) of BIEMH, the Spanish Machine Tool Biennial. This is the fourth most important trade fair in the world for the sector, and the third largest in Europe, having consolidated its advancement as a pioneer monographic exhibition for the The 19th edition, which was held last June, was focused on the EU priorities for R&D programms linked to manufactu- ring and, in particular to the roadmap for the factories of the future: manufacturing technologies aimed at the aeronau- tics and automotive sectors, design and manufacture of large machines and large parts, sustainability, smart machi- nes and processes, improvement of machining and forming processes with special sessions dedicated to additive manu- facturing technologies aimed at the aeronautics sector, composite materials in the automotive sector (material, preform, process and non␣destructive assessment), product, process, market diversification, adding value in the customer␣supplier chain. / AFM is also active in China. What is your main activity in that country and why did you start it? China is the sectors main export destination accounting for more than 20% of our turnover outside Spain. machine tool sector. Next year the BIEMH will be held for the twenty-eigth time, in Bilbao, from 2 to 7 June 2014. The sectors attending this year’s fair will be machine tools (metalworking and deformation), other machines (welding, oxyfuel cutting and surface treatment), tools for machine tools, parts, components and accessories, production system automation, metrology and quality control and service. Biemh is a landmark when we refer to big size machining applications and parts.