ALUMINIUM 2014 Blog

Christian Wellner, managing director of the GDA (german Aluminium association)

Reed Exhibitions (RX): Mr. Wellner, as a founding partner and as institutional patron of ALUMINIUM, the GDA has supervised and supported the event right from the outset. You have been managing director of the GDA for many years now and were amongst those who first developed the idea of an ALUMINIUM trade fair and presented it to the industry. Can you tell our readers something about your career. How did you get involved with aluminium and the GDA?

Christian Wellner (CW): I’ve been working in the aluminium industry and its different bodies for nearly 30 years now. I studied Economics and my first job afterwards was with an aluminium industry trade association. My father advised to gain some experience there and then to do something “with good prospects”. In the mid-1980s there was a major boom in demand for aluminium as a material and in the aluminium industry as a whole. I very quickly realised that I’d found an industry with a bright future and with plenty of scope for development. Which is basically why I’m still here, working for a material and an industry which still has outstanding potential – and indeed one “with good prospects”.

RX: What do you see as the main challenges facing the aluminium industry in 2012?

CW: Despite the national debt crisis, our sector is facing the coming year with a degree of cautious optimism.  German producers are strongly placed amongst the international competition and benefit from their high degree of specialisation. If the politicians can come up with answers to the urgent national debt questions in Europe which the markets find satisfactory, this will considerably boost business expectations for the current year. And this, in conjunction with the positive underlying trend in the key aluminium industry markets, would provide a solid foundation for further growth in 2012.

RX: The GDA organised the EAC – European Aluminium Congress – at the end of November. What indications emerged from this regarding future developments for the industry?

CW: The international congress gave the equipment and technology partners of the aluminium producers and processors a platform for presenting their latest developments. The speakers and the experts from the national and international aluminium industry who took part all agreed that the technology partners and equipment providers to the aluminium industry can expect to face increasing demands in the future. Besides machinery and equipment, our sector needs providers with a comprehensive understanding of the whole process and extensive systemic know-how at all stages of the aluminium value creation chain – from production and processing right through to the area of recycling, which is now growing in significance. Read Full Post

GDA Gesamtverband der Aluminiumindustrie together with Reed Exhibitions are planning and organizing the conference accompanying ALUMINIUM 2012. Under the name “Aluminium – Material for the Future” presentations are planned on the subjects of processes, transport, automotive, surface and aluminium markets.

Specialists from companies, research institutes and universities are warmly invited to submit presentations on these subjects. The submitted contributions will be examined by a programme committee, which may also permit other subject areas. The contributions will be compiled into a publication and made available.

The submission deadline for the abstracts is 23 March 2012.

More information and details on the call for papers can be found at the conference website:

http://www.aluminium-conference.de

The conference will begin each day at 9:30 a.m. and end at 4:30 p.m. Each session with its six presentations is a half day in length and will be organized in terms of its subjects so that conference visitors will have an opportunity to spend the second half of the day viewing the exhibition. The sessions can be booked individually.

Your contact for questions concerning content:
Wolfgang Heidrich
Tel: +49 211 4796-271
wolfgang.heidrich@aluinfo.de

For the first time the German aluminium industry association GDA as the institutional patron of the ALUMINIUM 2010 trade fair will organise the accompanying conference under the motto “Aluminium – Material of the Future”. Five different sessions are planned for the three days of the fair on the application-related themes of processes, transport, automotive, surface and aluminium markets. The conference language is English.

The full programme is available online: http://www.aluminium-conference.de/program.html

In 2010, the ALUMINIUM 2010 Conference is being organised for the first time by GDA – Gesamtverband der Aluminiumindustrie in conjunction with Reed Exhibitions. The conference is titled ‘Aluminium – Material for the Future” and around 50 proposals for presentations have been submitted covering the following topics: “Automotive”, “Building”, “Market”, “Transport” and “Surface”.

All sessions can be booked individually and can be easily combined with a visit of the trade fair.

For further information, please contact:

Wolfgang Heidrich +49 (0) 211 4796 271
www.aluminium-conference.de