Navalia 2020 Management willing to expand the fair to City Centre

Vigo’s Mayor, Abel Caballero, chairs Executive Committee second meeting of the trade show. Pavilions 1 and 2 already completed and the enlargement is been reserved by international representation

The International Shipbuilding Exhibition, NAVALIA, has just held a new Executive Committee meeting attended by Mayor Abel Caballero. The presence of the counsellor from Vigo served, indeed, to craft a new trade fair goal: Navalia’s continuity and impact on the city. “Navalia is a professional trade fair certainly marking the city, especially on the economic impact”, explained José García Costas, fair’s President and leading Manager for Hijos de J. Barreras Shipyard. In this sense, we must recall, even thought is a biannual event, Navalia has an economic impact on Vigo City of around 10 million Euro. “Nevertheless, on this occasion we are going to take a step ahead and organize activities on the same week frame that Navalia 2020 involving directly our citizens. In order to get it we need our Mayor’s priceless support” pointed out Mr García Costas.

During the meeting, Javier Arnau, Director for the fair, informed about booking figures of what will be the eighth edition of Navalia. Organizers has already no available spaces at pavilions 1 and 2, while the enlargement is been occupied by Colombian, Cape Verde or USA institutional representatives, as well as companies from Norway, Switzerland and Holland. “During preparation period of each Navalia we perform a wide promotion calendar. From Nor-Shipping, the last trade show of the sector we have visited, we brought possible exhibitors, some of them have officially formalised its participation”, explained Mr Arnau.

In this sense, Javier Arnau has also render account on the recent visit to Morocco, where he could get to know first-hand the new mega Shipyard project of the country. “We are organizing a trade mission with the auxiliary industry and the country shipowners. We have had meetings at the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Morocco and at the Spanish Embassy in Casablanca and Rabat.

And thank you to ICEX (International Trading Institute), we will officially invite Morocco Government to visit Navalia 2020” pointed out Mr Arnau.
Morocco is not at the show since 2014 and we should mention their fishing fleet needs an important renovation. Apart from that, and after several meetings during the visit, Javier Arnau verified there are a range of possibilities for Galician companies on tugboats, dredgers, patrol boats and maritime rescue sectors (due to the new UE requirements).