and despite this, we already have our machinery equipment and we won’t be rushing into buying any new machinery. Despite machinery still being bought in Europe, these sales are not taking place at the same pace as a few years ago. We must also take into account that if we consider Germany, for example, a country with top quality own manufacturers, they will first focus on their national market. So, at present, the opportunities lie in emerging countries. / INTERVIEW I believe that at the moment China on its own consumes “I would like to believe that we continue to maintain higher levels of creativity and inventiveness than they do and I might even dare to say that higher than many other countries”, he said. In the picture, the MEC-150 Top CNC model, its biggest What danger does Asian competition represent for Spanish manufacturers? It is true that the competition is there, but Spanish techno- logy is superior. Our experience is that on a global level, European quality is at a higher level. Another factor would be the economic matters, which can represent a sales limit, which provides foreign manufacturers with a new challenge which is price competition, without taking into account experience in exporting. The fact is that the global economic situation is very different from what we encountered in 2008 and I am unsure whether we starting exporting today as we did back then. These five years of experience encourage us to continue, but without them things would prove much harder. more machinery-tools than the rest of the world. Some figure, right? demand more for ourselves, because this is exactly what the clients will do. Being present at a trade fair and comparing ourselves to the competition is precisely what leads to this self-demand in so far as the machine’s operation and its design and impeccable presentation, which becomes much more visible at a trade fair than in the workshop and we could even say this represents a reflection of its interior. If a machine has a good design and structure, the client auto- matically interprets that it is probably well manufactured on the inside. These details are the ones which also allow us to maintain a technological distance with Asian manufacturers, as we cannot compete with the salaries paid in these coun- tries and there is always someone who is willing to work for very little. Although they should probably follow Henry Ford’s advice. He had no interest in relocating, he preferred to have employees who earned sufficient salary for them to buy his cars, which in turn generated internal growth caused partly by this own feedback. A very simple concept which the large corporation forgot and despite some of them having retur- ned, the truth is that part of the technology has not returned. And this leads to a significant loss of knowledge. machine, sold in Canada. / 33 In any case, we must pay special attention to Asian compe- tition, as their quality standards have risen and this always represents a higher risk, given that they maintain very low price while providing higher quality. However, I would like to believe that we continue to maintain higher levels of creativity and inventiveness than they do and I might even dare to say that higher than many other countries. The best example of this is the extent to which our engineers are headhunted, and the good thing is that these values cannot be copied. When Meco decided to go to Metav, was the company ready to face this factors you mention? Definitely not. For us the important factor was to be present with the most perfected machinery we could provide. Expe- rience has taught us that this is impossible, given that we are constantly improving and evolving. If we used today the model from five years ago, we wouldn't move forward. In 2008, the only factor we took into account was the need for the English language, and we chose Germany because I personally consider it to be a benchmark in the metal- mechanical sector. Germany became industrialised in a very short space of time in order to be equipped for the Second World War, this enabled them to develop a very strong based industry at all levels and maybe even more so within the mechanical sector. Once we were at Metav, we realised that we couldn’t go to just one trade fair, we had to continue and go further, much further, maintaining our presence within the sector and generating confidence, a fact we were unaware of up until then. Trade fairs are a place at which a company can see what it must improve on. We must be self-critical and Subcontracting and team work, does this represent an opportunity for Spanish companies? Actually it does and some trade fair have already dedicated monographic spaces for subcontracting companies. But once again, in this sense foreign companies have much more experience. For example, at a trade fair we recently attended, there was an area for these companies. In the area there were several German companies, a few French ones and only one Spanish company. This should not be this way. Public entities such as Icex organise joint participations... Do the administrations provide any aid? We were with Icex in India and they supported us a great deal. Being part of a group, especially for small companies,