On 7 February of this year, nearly 20 Chinese enterprises of ceramics & sanitary ware including upstream enterprises of glaze materials will go to Spain to attend the 2nd largest exhibition of ceramics & sanitary ware in the world--CEVISAMA. The number of Chinese enterprises attending the exhibition of this year is less than half of that of last year, because many enterprises are holding a wait-and-see attitude towards the market of Spain due to the impact of anti - dumping investigation. However, there are also some enterprises showing that regardless of some influence, the situation is not that bad and the sales volume of exportation of some enterprises has increased rather than decreased. It is known that the ink-jet products and thin tiles will still be the popular products in this year.

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　　Compared with Cersaie, CEVISAMA has much looser policies and allows Chinese enterprises to participate. "More and more Chinese enterprises are attending", is the strongest feeling of Hu Xiaopeng, who is the vice general manager of marketing in Fangyuan Ceramics and has been attending the exhibition since 2006. Most of the enterprises attend exhibitions for the purpose of widely finding appropriate source of customers through exhibitions. However, in the opinion of Liu Weifeng, executive director of Louis Valentino, the most important goal of attending exhibitions is to demonstrate the image of enterprises and get the first-hand information of products. To this end, they have got an area of 400m2 with special decoration in CEVISAMA this year and spent two months to make a real exhibition booth in China and then will bring it to Spain in package. It is heard that the price of the decoration is more than a million, with the price of each meter square reaching thousands of yuan and nearly equal to the price of the real estate market of Foshan.

　　Inkjet and Thin Tiles

　　Are Still the Mainstream

　　Inkjet ceramic products were abundant in last CEVISAMA. It is expected that they will continue to be the mainstream this year and many Chinese enterprises will exhibit their inkjet products. Hu Xiaopeng said, "Wood tile is a representative work of our enterprise; the application of inkjet printing technology makes our products more distinctive with higher fidelity ".

　　This year the Chinese ceramics enterprise pay more attention on market segmentation, for example, Yang Xiu, general manager of the exportation department of Foshan Florina Industry Co., Ltd., expressed that this year they would focus on inkjet rustic tiles of grey, black, beige and other plain colors.

　　Inkjet technology is widely applied, and thin tiles have also three and four years of history in the market of Europe. Besides the advantage of environmental protection and energy-saving, thin tiles can save human resources because tiles of 4 mm can be directly stricken to the original ceramic tiles while redecoration. At CEVISAMA this year, Florina will exhibit some new thin tiles. Different from those large-scale thin plates which are popular in Europe, their thin tiles are mainly of small-scale, which are more suitable for interior decoration. It is worth mentioning that Kashuo Ceramics also produces a kind of 4-mm thin mosaic which is made of natural stone materials. According to the introduction of Yang Xiu, "This kind of products is still not found on the market except from our company and common mosaic is generally of 6 to 10 mm." Thin mosaic is more flexible when applied in the decoration and also appeals to the popular trend of decoration in the market of Europe and U.S..

　　Testing the Market in 2012

　　Last February, EU began an anti-dumping investigation on Chinese tile and determined in March to impose punitive temporary tariff up to 73% against Chinese tile, and more than 1,400 Chinese enterprises have been involved in. Influenced by the treaty, many enterprises draw back from CEVISAMA--some enterprises have cancelled their plans to attend the exhibition and some reduced their scale of exhibition booth, but many enterprises also attend the exhibition with the attitude of testing the waters.

　　According to exhibitors' introduction, the situation of Europe is not as bad as people imagined. As this is an international exhibition, customers from European countries, as well as America, Africa and Middle East region will come to attend, so they still have received a lot of orders. In addition, as introduced by Yang Xiu, some small customers were affected in the past one year, yet the order of big customers has increased—they are still optimistic about the market. Hu Xiaopeng also said that the anti-dumping investigation of EU promoted them to upgrade their products, quickly eliminate a batch of low-end and cheap products, and targeting at the market, they develop many inkjet products and expand the scale of production in order to improve their competitiveness in the market.

　　今年2月7日，中国近二十家陶瓷卫浴包括色釉料的上游企业，将前往西班牙参加世界第二大陶瓷卫浴展———CEVISAMA(西班牙瓦伦西亚陶瓷卫浴展)。这比去年中国参展企业的数字少了一半，由于遭受反倾销调查的影响，很多企业对西班牙的市场还持观望态度。但是也有企业表示，虽然受到了一些影响，但情况还是没有想象的那么糟糕，有的企业出口的销售量不降反增。据了解，今年产品的流行趋势还将会是喷墨产品和薄板。

　　展示形象 提升品牌

　　相比于意大利博洛尼亚展，西班牙的展会对中国企业的限制少许多，允许中国企业参展，“有越来越多的中国企业投入其中”，这是自2006年就参加这个展会的方圆陶瓷营销副总经理胡晓鹏最大的感受。

　　由于展会辐射的客源非常广泛，各企业参加展会的目的大多都是希望通过展会，广泛地寻找合适的客源。但是，路易华伦天奴执行董事柳伟峰就表示，参展最重要的目的是为了展示企业的形象，同时还可获取第一手的产品信息。为此，他们今年在西班牙的展会上依然拿到了400平方米的特装面积，花了两个月的时间先在国内的一个厂棚里将展位实景布置好，再将其打包运到西班牙。据了解，这个展位的装修造价过百万，每平米数千元的价格直逼佛山楼市。

　　喷墨、薄板仍是主流

　　去年西班牙展会大量展示了陶瓷喷墨打印产品，预计今年喷墨产品仍是展会的主流，不少中国企业将携带其喷墨产品参展。胡晓鹏说：“仿木纹砖是我们企业的一个代表性作品，喷墨打印技术的运用使得我们产品的仿真度更高，更具有特色。”

　　今年参展的中国陶瓷企业也更为重视市场的细分，例如，佛山市卡烁进出口有限公司出口部总经理杨秀表示，今年他们将会以灰色、黑色、米色等素色调的喷墨仿古砖为主。

　　除了喷墨技术的广泛运用，薄板在欧洲市场也已经有三四年的历史了。薄板有着环保节能的优点，并且在翻修的时候，只有4毫米的薄板可以直接铺贴在原有的瓷砖上面，从而大大节省了人力资源。今年的西班牙展会，卡烁陶瓷就会带一些新推出的薄板产品过去，与欧洲流行的大规格薄板不同，他们的薄板以小规格为主，更适合室内装修。值得一提的是，卡烁陶瓷还生产了一种仅有4毫米的薄马赛克，用天然石材制成。据杨秀介绍：“这种产品目前市场还没有，我们是全国独家，正常的马赛克一般都是6到10毫米。”薄马赛克在装饰设计上的运用更为灵活，也迎合现在欧美市场流行的薄板装修趋势。

　　投石问路2012

　　自去年2月份以来，欧盟开始发起对中国瓷砖的反倾销调查，并于3月份初步确定向中国瓷砖征收高达73%的惩罚性临时关税，波及中国企业达1400多家。很多企业都受到了这个条约的影响，对欧洲西班牙的展会也是望而却步，有的企业取消了参展计划，有的企业将展位的规模缩小，但是也有很多企业抱着投石问路的心态，参加了这个展会。

　　据展商介绍，其实欧洲的情况并没有想象中的那么糟糕，毕竟这是一个国际化的展会，不仅欧洲国家的客户会参与，美洲、非洲、中东地区的客户也会参加，他们还是接到了很多订单。据杨秀介绍，这一年虽然有些小客户受到了影响，但是大客户的订单不降反升，形势还是很乐观的。而胡晓鹏也表示，欧盟反倾销的调查，促使他们企业产品升级换代，迅速淘汰了一批低端便宜的产品，并针对市场开发了很多喷墨产品，扩大了产品的生产规格，提高了市场竞争力。