MADRID RECOVERS THIS FAIR FOR THE TWO-WHEEL SECTOR

This fair aims to become a unique and innovative event for the city of Madrid, based on a number of activities and meetings of interest to the general public.

Madrid, 18th October. Today witnessed the signature of an agreement between IFEMA and ANESDOR, the Spanish Motorcycle and Moped Industry Association, for the joint organisation of the Madrid Motorcycle Great Week-Madrid Ms Moto, whose first edition will take place in April 2007. This ambitious and innovative project has been presented as the most important national event for the two-wheel sector, with the city of Madrid playing an integral part in the overall design of the fair's strategy.

IFEMA will thus resume one of its most successful fair projects, following its experience within this sector with the motorbike fair it staged in the years 1998 and 2000. With this background, and featuring the support of a revitalised market and within a favourable market climate, the main objective of this new fair will be to cater for the promotional and marketing needs of the two-wheel industry. The design of this event will also cater for the expectations of a growing sector, one that demands effective promotion and greater dissemination of motorbike use. In this respect, the Madrid Motorcycle Great Week will go beyond the traditional limits of a fair by involving the entire city and all its members, with a view to becoming a unique and entirely innovative event.

This will complement the trade dimension of the event, whose highly representative character and emphasis on new features will undoubtedly ensure its impact as an effective means of boosting the two-wheel market. In effect, all of the manufacturers and distributors operating within the sector will be present at the fair, along with the leading accessory, component, lubricant and insurance companies. This Madrid Motorcycle Great Week will take place between 25th and 29th April 2007, opening its doors to thousands of visitors and motorbike enthusiasts.

These visitors will be the target of an extensive programme of activities, which will be organised to take place within the framework of the fair. Activities may include the following: a driving school; a number of motorbike test tracks; sports exhibitions: MOT's, and even ideas connected to photographic art and fashion. The programme will be complemented by events of a trade character aimed at professionals working within the industry, along with municipal experts and other representatives closely connected to the field.

Madrid Joins the Grand Motorbike Party

Within this context, both IFEMA and the city of Madrid, whose streets will host the staging of a large number of activities, will surrender to the charms of the motorbike, bringing all of their organisational capacity and imagination into play in order to offer a highly attractive event for a sector that is faced with a number of new and exciting prospects.

The challenge of this Madrid Motorcycle Great Week will, therefore, be two-fold. On the one hand, from a trade perspective, it will be a question of designing an effective tool for a much more active market and offering a profitable forum for promoting the sector. On the other hand, from a social perspective, the aim will be to convey the industry's enthusiasm for motorbikes to the streets of Madrid, thus making them the best showcase for demonstrating the benefits entailed by a responsible use of this type of vehicle in all fields. In short, the event must provide a key forum for disseminating the positive values associated with the world of two-wheeled vehicles.

In this respect, a series of coinciding activities will be organised throughout the city in order to bring the general public closer to the world of motorcycles and mopeds, within a strong framework of civic respect, based on a number of demonstrations and educational events of different kinds and for all ages. Implicit in these activities will be the desire to inculcate in the public a series of values such as safety, sustainability, respect for the environment and responsibility, as well as highlighting the added value that motorcycles can provide in daily life throughout the city and in terms of urban mobility.

In order to achieve these goals and effectively involve Madrid in this "grand motorbike party", the Safety and Community Services Department at Madrid City Council has expressed its support for this important initiative, stating that it will collaborate on the implementation of the various measures and guarantee the favourable progress and participation in activities organised on the streets of Madrid.

A Booming Sector

Rising living standards, a favourable regulatory framework and Spain's leading role in all competitive motorbike sports are all key factors with regard to the revival of this sector. Spain's fast-expanding sector includes production-plants owned by all the national and multinational manufacturers within the industry.

This much is confirmed by a study carried out by ANESDOR, an association that represents 97% of the entire Spanish market. This market has an overall turnover figure of more than 2,000 million euros. It also sustains some 22,000 jobs. Sales within the sector have shot up, especially within the motorbike segment, based on an increase of 78.95% in the year 2005. Furthermore, mopeds, which witnessed a similar volume of sales last year, have enjoyed an accumulated increase in sales of 18.54% up until August of this year.