Barberan S.A. has been the industry honcho and specialised in designing and manufacturing machinery for surface finishing: complete solutions for laminating, wrapping, lacquering and digital printing. This time, in Xylexpo 2024 edition, Our editor-in-chief, Apratim Ghoshal had a direct interation with Stephan Ertack, Export, Barberan. We got the chance to know about the display, trends in flooring, current market, IWF and more through an exclusive interview.
Tell me what are you exhibiting here?
Stephan Ertack: We have wrapping machine with us here at Xylexpo 2024. This machine is specially made for the PVC industry, PVC and aluminium industry. It’s a machine that wraps PVC and aluminium profiles. It has a couple of features that are new to us and we wanted to present and showcase here at the show.
How is 2024 so far and what’s your expectation for the rest of the year?
Stephan Ertack: It’s been okay so far, although the year started off a bit slow or slower compared to other years but in different markets. For example, if we take into consideration the North American market, it’s election year so it’s rather normal that the year starts slow. Europe is slowly gaining a bit of more power when it comes to projects but overall it’s been a slow start of the year but we are looking forward to the end of this year and let’s see the next year if it improves.
Since, you are responsible for the USA market, how is the market for USA so far?
Stephan Ertack: The US market is right now probably our strongest market and it’s keeping up with a tendency that we have experience in the past years. I think it’s going to be as it was slow in the beginning and it’s going to be all right this year towards the end but as I mentioned before, it’s election year so we have to be a bit more patient but still the US market is probably our strongest market right now and we have a lot of work to execute. So, we just have to keep going.
Can you predict anything for 2025, like how is the market for 2025?
Stephan Ertack: Well, I’m looking forward to next year and let’s say we are more or less in the middle of 2024 with a lot of projects, we have a lot of work. It’s not a BC year but still we have a lot of things going on. We have to focus on those with the aim on next year, different markets having probably economic. Let’s say, with a healthier situation when it comes to economics and more companies willing to invest in the industry and let’s say the four divisions that we generally work on which are laminataion wrapping digital printing and lacquering so we are looking forward to next year but also how this year is going to evolve in the coming months.
Next year is the LIGNA year. How do you prepare yourself?
Stephan Ertack: We had LIGNA last year in 2023 and We have the show again in 2025. We are really looking forward to this show and we are really looking forward to what the show is going to bring us. Until now we are very happy with Xylexpo edition and let’s see what is the response for the rest of the days.
