TECHNOFOREST is business–to–business exhibition includes producers and traders from the whole chain of forestry and harvesting – equipment and technologies for soil cultivation and forestation, through forest care and forest protection to the harvesting and marketing of timber and non-timber forest products.
The forestry and wood harvesting continue to develop slower than other sectors of the Bulgarian economy. In the last years wood harvested on national level is about 5 million m3 (about 4 million m3 are harvested from the state forests). According to the Forest Management Plans, the potential harvesting volume is about 7.5 million m3, but considering the overall increment of Bulgarian forest this amount is about 12.5 million m3. Annually, 125000 ha young and pre-mature stands have to be covered with tending operations, but in reality these activities are carried out on not more than 45000 - 95000 ha. The volumes yielded from tending are also much lower than the potential. Annually, between 2000 and 6000 ha are forestated (about 3700 ha in 2009) and about 15000 ha are naturally regenerated as result of regeneration felling.
In Bulgaria forestry operations as forestation, tending and harvesting are organized by forest management units (75% state and 25% municipal and private) and are carried out by private entrepreneurs, which are mostly small and medium enterprises. Recently, according to the statistics the number of such companies is about 1300.
The entrepreneurs use small number and outdated machines. This is the main reason for the low labour productivity and therefore for the low salary rate, nevertheless the timber prices are comparatively high. On the other hand the old and outdated machines have a negative impact on the environment and are dangerous for health and safety of the forest workers.
Important precondition for overcoming of this disproportion is the long-term (up to 10 years) contracting of the implementation of forest activities in the state forests, which should be amended in the new forest legislation. We are expecting this amendment to be a key factor for change in the investment policy and practices of the forest entrepreneurs.
Recently, forest entrepreneurs have access to new financial instruments, which in conjunction with the expected legislation changes will support the realization of the forestry sector potential. The expected development of the sector could be achieved only through introduction of new machines and technologies and enhancement of the qualification of the employed staff.
Forestry experts expect growing interest to the new means for productions in forestry and wood harvesting that will make the labour of forest entrepreneurs more effective, productive, ergonomic and prestigious. The state forest administration and state forestry enterprises are also interested of these aspects, because they are most affected of these disproportions.
TECHNOFOREST is also a ground for meetings between producers and traders of forest equipment and entrepreneurs and experts from the forestry sector.
Therefore, TECHNOFOREST is an event that creates chances for development of entire forestry sector, through establishment of new possibilities and relationships.
The exhibition has three basic thematic groups:
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Forestry and forest care;
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Wood harvesting and forest use;
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Forest logistics and management;
The economic crisis will continue in 2010 and the question aroused during the first exhibition in 2009 – Whether right now is the right time for such specialized exhibition? - is also actual today.
The answer is “Yes”, because this exhibition will provide a chance to participants and visitors to discover new opportunities for their business. Recently, in a situation of dropping prices and decreased demand of row materials, services and products, forest entrepreneurs have not many useful steps. In order to stay in the forestry business, one of these steps is to search for new opportunities for development, incl. new partners, new production perspectives and/or restructuring, new markets, etc. nevertheless this is not an easy task.
This was the main reason, we as initiators and organizers of the exhibition with support by our partners to take the decision not to break the exhibition sequence, which was practiced by similar traditional exhibitions. We are forcing the opening of TECHNOFOREST 2010 giving a chance for the stakeholders in forestry sector to seek and find potential solution for their business, if it is in crisis.
We were not demotivated by the expected low activity of the exhibitors. The former contacts with potential Bulgarian exhibitors as well as connections with well known companies from Austria and Germany, provide optimistic confidence for the forthcoming second edition of the exhibition.
As initiators of this unique for Bulgaria and the region specialized exhibition, the Union of Bulgarian Forest Entrepreneurs “BULPROFOR” find in BULRECLAMA Agency a solid partner that was appointed for second time to organize and implement the event.
The decision for simultaneous realization of TECHNOFOREST and the traditional exhibition TECHNOMEBEL, which will be situated in adjacent pavilions, is giving a new vision for completeness, namely: “Everything for the forestry sector - From the plant sapling to the final product - in one place”.
You could blame as to be excessive optimists if the saying, that the aim justifies the means, is not true. Nevertheless, we are optimistic, because we are looking to the future, when everything will be easier, because we will have the experience gained in several already held exhibitions.
