Marmomacc and Samoter joins forces for a new event in Cairo focusing on marble, technologies, design and construction machinery

The MS AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST exhibition will make its debut 9-12 December at the Cairo International Convention and Exhibition Centre (CICC) until construction is completed of the new Cairo Expo City.

The MS AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST exhibition will make its debut 9-12 December at the Cairo International Convention and Exhibition Centre (CICC) until construction is completed of the new Cairo Expo City - a project awarded to the group of architects headed by Zaha Hadid together with Buro Happold.

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The initiative is based on the experience of Veronafiere's best-known brands in the construction industry - Marmomacc (http://www.marmomacc.it/.marmomacc.it) and Samoter (http://www.samoter.it/.samoter.it) - whose initials give the event its name: MS AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST, The International Trade Fair for Stone Design, Technology, Earthmoving and Building Machinery.

Veronafiere's project boasts the collaboration of Egyptian exhibition organiser Art Line. It aims to bring together, in a single event, excellence in the building field as regards materials, know-how, technologies and machinery to offer emerging markets in North Africa the entire natural stone value chain - from quarrying and processing to quarry machinery and vehicles, through to building machinery and finished products.

Egypt offers a great many business opportunities for companies in terms of growing demand linked to major infrastructural development projects and the lack of local production, especially as regards construction machinery.

The economies of Egypt and other North African countries are considered strategic for the development of international activities for Samoter and especially Marmomacc, since the 2012 exhibition will be attended by about 60 companies from Egypt.

Despite suffering from an unstable political situation on a par with almost all countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Egypt enjoys a very favourable geographical position encouraging a natural role as a regional hub, thanks not the least to commercial agreements (Comesa, Gafta) signed with most countries in the continent.

The local stone industry is developing, as proven by figures released by the Marmomacc Observatory based n Istat data: Italian exports of marble, granite and natural stones in the Mediterranean area (Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Libya) grew in the first half of 2012 by 7.2% from 27.5 to 29.5 million euros. Specifically, processed, cut and finished materials exported to Egypt increased by 71.7% from 845,205 to 1,450,815 euros. On the other hand, marble processing equipment and technologies in the first six months saw Italian exports to Africa improve from 37 to 62.5 million euros (+68.6%).

The Italian earth moving machinery market is also consolidating its positions, with global exports up in the first half from 424.1 to 519.2 million euros (+20%).

In particular, exports to Africa of machinery for processing aggregates almost doubled (+96.7%) from 13.3 to 26.3 million euros; concrete production equipment also performed well (+18.4%), up from 35.6 to 42.2 million euros, as well as road building systems (+25.7%) from 17.8 to 22.4 million euros.