Weldex and Fastenex 2024: moving up in attendance and innovation

Weldex 2024, the largest International Exhibition of Welding Materials, Equipment and Technologies in terms of the number of exhibitors and visitors, took place on 8-11 October in Moscow, Crocus Expo IEC

The 2nd Fastenex International Exhibition of Fasteners and Industrial Supply was held on the same platform as Weldex.

Weldex continues its growth and development from year to year. This year, a new record was set for the number of visitors, the number of exhibitors increased, and new topics were covered at the International Welding Forum.

Weldex 2024 Key Findings:

• 6,859 unique visitors from 76 regions of Russia and 19 countries
• 178 manufacturers and suppliers of welding equipment and materials from Russia, Turkey, China, Vietnam, Pakistan and India. The number of Weldex 2024 participants exceeded the 2023 figure by 6%
• 8,600 square metres of exhibition space at Weldex and Fastenex
• 2/3 of companies participated in the exhibition for the first time
• 13 events of the International Welding Forum and 60 speakers
• 60+ participants of the Welding Cup of Russia Weldex 2024 National Championship and Women in Welding competition, 22 winners and prize-winners

Fastenex: growth of the Russian part of the exposition and +21% of visitors compared to last year

The Fastenex exhibition was attended by companies from Russia, China and Vietnam. The exhibition was visited by 5 061 specialists from 57 regions of Russia and 8 countries.

72% of visitors are new visitors to the exhibition! The exhibition gathered the most interested specialists on its platform - 92% of visitors came to the exhibition to get acquainted with new products and trends.

Weldex 2024 exposition

The companies demonstrated their products in 11 exhibition sections:

• Welding equipment and materials
• Metal cutting equipment
• Industrial robots
• Additive technologies. 3D-printing (FIRST!)
• Equipment and materials for applying protective and hardening coatings
• Equipment for quality control of welded joints
• Tools and accessories for welding work
• Personal and collective protective equipment for welding operations
• Edging equipment
• Soldering equipment
• Technical gases

Russian and foreign market leaders presented their products, including: DEKA, A3 Engineering, Agni, Acropolis, Alarm, Alfa Global, Astrinsplav SK, Variant-A, Vector Group, Welding Group Samara, Grovers, GRPZ, Goodel, Deltasvar, Deria Graphics, Eurotek.spb.ru, EWC, Itz-engineering, Katran, Quality Nuts, KB AST, Keramax, Kron-SPB, Losionoostrovsky Electrode Plant, Mashtekhnika, MGT, Metalstroysnab, Midasot, MLS, MMK-Metiz, Mosz, Npk Theta, NSM, OTS, Plakart, Roksistemy, Rotorika, Rutektor, Welding, SKT-Service, SMD, SMT, Sovplim, Stal, Startveld, Technored, Technosvar, Tehresurs-M, TC Novostal-M, Ferrotrade, Haender, CTC Vyborg, Cherepovets Welding Materials Plant, Esva, United Machinery and others.

In 2024, more than 40 per cent of exhibitors will be making their first stand at Weldex. Among the new companies: Abrasivkomplekt, Alfa Engineering, Bodor, Baltpromremservis, Weldprom, Vilitek, GK TSS, Debiver, ZE METALVORKS, Ixveld, InGa, INKOR, KM, Continental, Kugel, Latikom, Lazerbazz, LidTechnology, Mera, MDI2B, NPP "ST", NPF Elektrik, Optima Weld, Perm National Research Polytechnic University, Piton, PKF "IVS", Svarka Master, SZSM-Invest, SKT-Service, Solo, Somz, Welders' Union, Stroykompleksservice, Sychevsky Zavod Welding Materials, Teknarus, Technoveld, Technovostok, FABMETALL, Centavra, Sharplaze and others.

Weldex 2024 exhibitors

Products of the exhibitors

81% of Weldex exhibitors found new customers at 2024!

"This year's Weldex is very lively, with a large number of people we already know and also new people coming in, people we are just getting to know."
Rosomz

"We are satisfied with our participation in Weldex, we got new contacts. Customers from the exhibition are considering purchasing our equipment."
Vector Group

"We are very pleased with the exhibition, we believe it was very busy and productive. Our impressions are only the most positive, every year the exhibition attracts a huge number of visitors from different parts of Russia and from other countries. We are planning steps for joint development in the near future with our clients and Weldex. We definitely plan to continue to participate in this exhibition."
Cherepovets Welding Materials Plant

The exposition always reflects the latest trends and innovations in the industry, and this year Weldex was the FIRST to present additive technologies and 3D printing devices, and it is safe to say that the launch of this sector was a success.

"This is the first time we have participated with our stand. The equipment arouses interest, we are very pleased. The most positive impressions are the large flow of visitors. For us, Weldex is a platform for meeting with trusted partners, and at the same time it is a platform where new people see us. Weldex this year emphasised additive technologies, and we can feel it. We have people coming to us already prepared, who have come to see what is presented by Russian developers on the market."
Ixweld

Fastenex 2024 exposition

Fastenex exhibitors' stands presented fasteners and tooling for various applications. Among the exhibitors: OTC, Polesie, Rivet Gun, Russian Samorez, Stamo Springs, ITIC International Technics and Investment JSC, Anhui Paiensi Metal Products Co.,Ltd, Anhui Tianyu Weiye Auto Parts Co.,Ltd, Bsc Corporation Limited, Changzhou Turit Nc Technology Co.,Ltd, Dongguan Jinpeng Hardware Co.,Ltd, Dongguan Kingmo Metal Products Co.,Ltd, and others.

Fastenex 2024 exhibitors

Exhibitor product catalogue

Fastenex exhibitors presented their products within 10 exhibition sections:

• Industrial fasteners and metalware
• Construction fasteners
• Furniture fasteners
• Wiring fasteners and wiring materials
• Assembly and installation systems
• Fittings
• Accessories
• Consumables (drills, bits, diamond and grinding products)
• Equipment for the production of fasteners
• Information technology

85% of Fastenex exhibitors found new customers at 2024!

"The Fastenex exhibition is a joy, lots of visitors, lots of new customers, lots of new acquaintances. It's important for us to participate here, more people are getting to know about us. It's very convenient when so many customers come in a day."
Polesie

Premieres of the 2024 Conference programme

During three days Weldex, Fastenex and ToolMash were accompanied by a rich conference programme of 15 professional events with 60+ experts speaking. The conference programme attracted 530 attendees, which is 5% more than last year!

It is worth noting that 5 events of the programme were completely new and touched upon topics that had not been previously covered at the exhibition. Among the premiers of the conference programme:

Main plenary discussion "Prospects and opportunities for achieving Russia's technological sovereignty in welding production"

Nadezhda Nikolayevna Volkova, President of the Russian Scientific and Technical Welding Society, member of the Council for Technical Regulation and Standardisation under the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia, expert of the UNECE working group on technical regulation and standardisation, made a presentation as part of the discussion. The topic of the speech was "Experience of international co-operation in a bi-polar world (including with BRICS countries)". Nadezhda Nikolaevna gave the dynamics of consumption and production of welding equipment. According to the data, the share of dependence on imports in 2024 is 69% and by 2030 should be 10%. The speaker also drew attention to the existing barriers to the development of the welding industry of the Russian Federation, and the main consuming industries, according to the expert, will increase consumption of CRM by 2-3% annually until 2025. The main drivers will be: construction industry, automotive industry, nuclear power industry, machine tool industry.

Other topics discussed included welding production to ensure the implementation of the high-speed railway infrastructure construction project, options for solving personnel problems in welding, the use of carbon monoxide as a shielding gas instead of argon and many others.

Trend session "Artificial Intelligence and Automation in Industry"

The session was moderated by Valery Ivanovich Krivorotov, PhD, Welding Alliance of St. Petersburg and North-West Region. At the conference event the experts raised the topic of modern technologies and their application in welding, prospects of AI implementation in industry, welding software.

Round table "New approaches and options for solving personnel problems in welding"

During the session, Natalia Yurievna Grubnikova, curator of the laboratory of SPE in the field of metallurgy, power engineering, machine and instrument engineering, chief specialist of the department of support for the work of FUMO and development of SPE curricula of the SPE content development department of FSBEU DPO IRPO, reported that the Ministry of Education is updating the standards of secondary vocational education: in 2023, two updated FSES SPE were approved: 15.01.05 Welder (manual and partially mechanised welding (surfacing) and 15.02.19 Welding Production. The work is also underway to form a draft educational standard 15.01.39 Welder-operator of fully mechanised, automatic and robotic welding by combining two professions: 15.01.04 Welding and gas-plasma cutting equipment operator and 15.01.06 Laser welder. The speaker emphasised that work was underway to correct the deficiencies.

Iraida Anatolyevna Laskina, Director of S.P. Korolev Interregional Centre of Competences - Technical School, told about the experience of training welders at S.P. Korolev Interregional Centre of Competences - Technical School. "Today there is a noticeable decrease in the flow of manufacturers who come to educational organisations and conduct practical seminars. Their number on the basis of the ICC has decreased by half. In this regard, young specialists cannot keep up with the new equipment", - said Iraida Anatolievna.

Artem Shukhratovich Alimov, General Director of Mari 3D Technologies LLC shared his experience of professional welding training for secondary school students.

Alexander Vasilyevich Mullin, Director of RNTSO, spoke about welding competitions and championships and gave criteria for successful and effective implementation of these events.

Session "Russia-China. Logistics and International Payments"

The event took place within the ToolMash exhibition, where Ivan Savushkin, Commercial Director of Nawinia spoke on the topic "Logistics in the new economic reality". The speaker shared data on the container transport market from January to July 2024. During the above period, transportations through Zabaikalsk in export-import traffic increased by 8% compared to the same period last year and amounted to 13 million tonnes. The speaker also drew attention to the situation with the ports of the Far East and noted the port of Novorossiysk as one of the most efficient. Ivan Savushkin also mentioned the growing imbalance of containers and fittings: there is a shortage of containers and a surplus of platforms on the market. The expert also noted that the usual scheme of interaction has changed and such a concept as "proxy buyer", "proxy partner" has appeared. In this regard, Ivan Savushkin shared the current options for work at the moment:

Payment under agency agreement
Payment under sale and purchase agreement
Foreign trade outsourcing

Ludmila Chibisova, Head of Financial and Commodity Logistics at Optimalog, emphasised the possibilities of financial transactions in her presentation. The speaker commented on the general situation with payments and presented 3 main payment options:

Cross-border payments (Non-banking banks of the Russian Federation, representative offices of foreign banks on the territory of the Russian Federation)
Payment agents (Residents / non-residents of the Russian Federation)
Third countries (Non-resident companies in third country jurisdictions)

The speaker also spoke about new interesting payment schemes via Zambia, UAE (for payments to Europe), and in addition to them the possibility of payments via Singapore (for payments to China). Ludmila Chibisova commented on the scheme of routes from China and presented options of alternative routes, including Deep Sea, accelerated container trains (ACT) and the use of road freight transport.

Svetlana Startseva, Director of Business Accounting Department, Partner at Sapozhnikov & Partners, focused on cross-border payments from a legal point of view. Using the example of payments to China and India, the expert spoke about possible payment options (using "technical" invoices, agency payment and delivery schemes, assignment of claims and cryptocurrency).

The final presentation of the session was a report by Evgenia Dmitrieva, Executive Director, Russian-Chinese business support, ex-head of the representative office of the Finnish welding equipment manufacturer Kemppi, Sinoruss Company, on the topic "Reducing risks when making cross-border payments under the agency scheme". The expert highlighted the legal issues of the agency scheme, including the legality of the agency scheme and the need to include the agency fee in the customs value of goods. In June 2024, the Federal Customs Service published Protocol No. 10, which recommended that agency fees should be considered depending on in whose interests the agent acts:

If the agent acts for the seller, the fee is included in the price;
If it is in the best interest of the buyer, it is not included.

Case session "Analysing the current state of the fastener market"

For the first time within the conference programme of Fastenex exhibition a case-session "Analysis of the current state of the fasteners market" was held. The partner of the event was the Centre of Fasteners. Moderator - Vyacheslav Tarasov, coordinator of the community "Fastener Club", General Director of CKI, Centre for Fasteners.

Vyacheslav Tarasov spoke on the topic "Fastener market trends". According to the speaker, the world markets for fasteners are China and Taiwan with an average annual export growth rate for 2019-2023 - 9%. Production of hardware products in Russia is growing at about the same rate - 8% per year, and production for the domestic market in 2023/2022 increased by 14%. The structure of imports of fastener products by country in 2023 was as follows:

China (78 per cent)
Belarus (18 per cent)
Taiwan (3%)

Speaking about the export of fastener products, the speaker noted a 33% decrease in exports in 2023/2022. At the same time, the market capacity from 2014 to 2023 grows annually by an average of 7%, where the shares of imports and domestic production are approximately equal.

Speaking about the production of nails, Vyacheslav Tarasov noted that "nails are produced in Russia, but about half of these products are imported". According to the speaker, there are two reasons for this:

The assortment demand for fasteners of Russian companies reaches 50 thousand articles, internal production covers only 20% of the assortment.
Low-quality fasteners, when Russian importers order fasteners with deteriorated technical characteristics. A striking example is a threaded rod with a reduced angle of inclination.

Vladislav Kozlov, General Director of VsV, made a report "Analysing the Professional Anchor Fasteners Market". The expert notes a drop in the market capacity in roubles by about 37% due to the departure of foreign companies HILTI and FISCHER. At the same time, the share of Chinese imports, analogues of European brands, increased by 18%.

Dmitry Burzakov, Technical Director, Tech-Crep. The speaker shared data on the construction market for the first half of 2023/2024. The housing market grew by 3%, while there is a serious redistribution of the shares of apartment buildings and housing construction: the share of housing construction grew by 25%, while the share of apartment buildings decreased by 28%. The main share of the dowelling technology market is occupied by fasteners for facades.

Alexander Mosalov, STRIK Ltd. spoke on "Special fasteners and import substitution".

Traditionally, the exhibition has hosted such important events as:

• Specialised session "Robots in welding production: analysis of the current state and plans for the future"
• Seminar-panel discussion "Methods of welding regulation at hazardous production facilities"
• Practical session "Laser welding. Additive welding technologies. Achievements and prospects"
• Scientific and Practical Conference on Aluminium Welding "New in Welding, Cutting, Cladding in Production of Aluminium and Aluminium Alloys Products"

Partners of the exhibition Conference programme: MMAGS, RNTSO, Robotics and ISS Consortium, Aluminium Association, Centre of Fasteners, Alliance of Welders of St. Petersburg.

Let's show the class! Organised master classes took place at the stands

As part of the conference programme on the third day, organised master classes were held at the exhibitors' stands:

Topics:

• ROTORIC stand

Equipment for preparation for welding. Equipment for positioning pipes and fittings before welding. Equipment for processing of welding seams.

• AVRORA Group booth

AVRORA - the most advanced technologies of MIG / MAG welding. Demonstration of the capabilities of industrial semi-automatic machines "Resurs".

• MGT stand

Welding techniques for different materials.

• HUGONG booth

Stainless Steel Welding.

• Stand of the company METALLSTROYSNAB

Mechanised welding techniques.

Best of the Best: National Championship "Welding Cup of Russia Weldex 2024" and Women in Welding competition took place

Professional championships and competitions are held annually at Weldex. This year, welders once again proved their skills at the Weldex 2024 Russian Welding Cup National Championship and the Women in Welding competition.

Within the framework of the championship, the participants competed in two categories: "Best Professional Welder 2024" and "Best Apprentice Welder 2024". In each category there were three nominations for different types of welding. The winners and prize-winners of the Championship were 18 welding professionals.

A professional contest "Women in Welding" was also held to recognise the merits of women professionals in the welding industry. "Women in Welding" is a unique competition, the only one in Russia and CIS countries on this topic. Following the results of the competition, the winners were determined in 5 nominations: "Woman Leader", "Woman Engineer", "Woman Teacher/Mentor", "Woman Welder", "Woman Welder", "Women in Welding", "Women in Welding" and "Women in Welding". Woman Welder", "Woman Welder", "Woman Artist".

A total of 60+ specialists from 12 regions of the Russian Federation took part in the Championship and competition.

The results of the competitions were announced at the awards ceremony on 10 October 2024. All winners and runners-up received honorary cups, diplomas and valuable prizes from the Sponsors of the Championships and competitions.

The championship was supported by DEKA, CNIITMASH, Deria, Oliver, Elsvar, Hugong, SovPlim, TD Solo. The Women in Welding competition was held with the support of Women in Modern Industries. The competitions are co-organised by MMAGS, ELSWAR.

Competition "Best Implemented Innovative Projects in Welding and Related Technologies 2023-2024"

This year Weldex again held a competition to find out the best projects implemented by welding managers - chief welders or representatives of the management staff whose responsibilities include the functions of chief welders in their companies (technical directors, chief engineers, chief technologists, chief metallurgists, chief mechanics).

The winners of the competition were:

Launch of full-cycle production at the Moskvich plant, including welding and body painting
Robotic complex of laser welding of metal bodies Shchmp 1-2, OP "PK "METALL-PLAST" IEK GROUP
Manufacturing and certification of products made from the latest 1407 and 1581 aluminium alloys in the manufacture of tanks and containers
Selective laser fusion of pure copper powders

The Weldex and Fastenex team would like to thank you for your support of the 2024 exhibitions

Weldex and Fastenex 2024 exhibitions are thanked for official support by the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, Moscow Interindustry Alliance of Chief Welders.

General Information Partner: Welding Production Magazine, Technologiya Mashinostroeniya Publishing House

General multimedia partner: Journal / Korabel.ru Portal, Journal / Mediapaluba Portal

General partner of the exhibition: ELSVAR

Information support was provided by: Aluminium Association, Russian Scientific and Technical Welding Society, Association of Metalworking Enterprises, Alliance of Welders of St. Petersburg, Magazine / Portal "Territory Neftegaz", RIC "Technosphere" (Magazines "Stankoinstrument", "Electronics", "Photonics", Magazine "Industrial Pages", Magazine / Portal "Korabel.ru", Portal "Shipbuilding Info", Industry Information Agency "Energy News", Journal "Market of Electrical Engineering", Specialised Industry Internet Portal "Marketelectro.ru", Journal / Portal "Webswarka", Journal "Machine Building Rhythm", Journal "Additive Technologies", International Portal "Open New Russia!", Journal / Portal "ELEC", Journal "Glue, Fasteners, Tools" and others.