The brick and tile industry gathers for "Meeting the Future of Sacmi Heavy Clay"

Sacmi Heavy Clay is organising a symposium with leading international expert in the brick and tile industry entitled “Meeting the Future of Sacmi Heavy Clay” on 28 September in the splendid setting of Hotel Poiano Resort on Lake Garda.

The symposium will explore far-reaching developments in the European heavy clay industry following a decade of profound change and will begin with a talk by Heimo Scheuch, CEO of Wienerberger. Next up will be Lorenzo Bellicini, managing director of Cresme, who will discuss the so-called "7th construction cycle". Analysts believe that this phase, which began in 2016, will see the industry make a strong recovery and undergo profound reorganisation, driven in particular by technological innovation, urban regeneration and new markets.

One such market is Algeria, a strategic area that will be the subject of a detailed report by Luca Casaletti (Bongioanni Stampi), who will also focus on the situation in the roof tile market. Next, the promising Turkish market will be discussed by Gökhan Görçiz, a board member of the Turkish brick and roof tile manufacturers’ association Tukder. His talk will focus on the opportunities offered by a region that extends from the Mediterranean to neighbouring Iran, as demonstrated by recent large-scale orders won by Sacmi-Cosmec. On the other side of the Atlantic, Latin America continues to offer interesting opportunities, which will be discussed by Latercer Group owner Angel di Benedetto in a talk focusing on scenarios and prospects for the Argentinian market.

The day will end with a visit to the nearby headquarters of Cosmec, the international designer of automated heavy clay handling solutions which brought strategic skills to the Sacmi Group when it became a member two years ago. In the evening the participants will have a chance to visit the Sacmi Imola production plant and R&D facility.