How French textile machinery manufacturers are doing right now?
Bruno Ameline: Worldwide investments in textile machinery have been quite satisfactory in the last few years. As for our 35 member companies, they are doing quite well. They export most of their production for an annual total of more than euros 1 billion (close to US$ 1.5 billion). Evelyne Cholet: In 2006, our growth rate exceeded 6%. I expect that the 2007 data will show a new increase but probably at a lower rate. For 2008, we are quite optimistic as order backlogs are good and order intakes come in at a regular pace. As our members are mainly specialty manufacturers, often world leaders in their sectors even though they are SMEs, their sales do not match the geographical segmentation of the general textile machinery sector. In particular, we are quite strong in Japan, Turkey, in European countries such as Belgium, Italy, Germany, the UK and Spain, in the US and in Morocco and Tunisia, but we are doing less business than other European manufacturing countries in such markets as China
