Exactly one year ago, Electro-mobility was still seen suspicious, considered as a bubble doomed to burst and inflated by just some visionaries without contact to reality. Nowadays Electro-mobility is a certainty and part of theA development plans of all the leading car companies. What happened throughout this year? The continuous technological development has made electric cars, hyper-connected cars and assisted driving systems accessible to the general public, transforming the way people think about mobility. The leading manufacturers in the automotive industry have not been watching and now virtually everyone is investing substantial capital for the development of the car of the future.

Compared to the situation in Europe, in Poland numbers regarding the purchase of electric cars are still marginal, with just a little over 0.2% of electric car owners. Nevertheless, the premises for the future are encouraging. The development of the Electro-mobility infrastructure is one of the economic priorities for the Polish government. Furthermore, Poland has an excellent industrial base and the ambition to become an important player in the production of the vehicles of the future. According to the Polish government, the development of the electric car market can have a significant impact on the country’s economy. There will be intense years of work to adapt the car production to new technological needs, but the stakes for Poland are high: the aim is to carve out a place among the leaders of the world automotive production.

The first IABM 2017 conference, organized last year, has shown that the topic requires discussions and further studies as well as debates and dialogues between the operators. Automotive suppliers know that the industry is facing a revolution and IABM is the ideal opportunity to catch up the needs of the companies at the top of the value chain as well as to engage with key note speakers in the industry.

This year’s edition of the International Automotive Business Meeting (IABM 2018) will take place from the 27 to 28 November at the Silesia Expo in Sosnowiec. Why will it be one of the biggest and most interesting conferences in this sector? First of all, because IABM is a decidedly international event, organized jointly by the major international Chambers of Commerce operating in Poland, bringing together producers and suppliers from Poland, Italy, Germany, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Austria. Our event has the support of companies from Japan, China and India, showing that every foreign market is looking for knowledge and information as well as markets to sell its new technologies. That’s why IABM 2018 is not just a conference but an international B2B event.

Through IABM we wanted to promote the dialogue of all the parties involved in the transformation process of the automotive industry.

The organizers of the International Automotive Business Meeting are the Chamber of Commerce, the Special Economic Zone of Katowice and the city of Sosnowiec. The event has the honorary patronage of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian Embassy. The co-organizers of the event are: the Silesia Automotive and Advanced Manufacturing Cluster, the Japanese Investment Agency in Poland (JETRO), the city of Dąbrowa Górnica and the German, French, Dutch, British and Austrian Chambers of Commerce in Poland. The main representative automotive institutions in Poland are supporting our event: the automotive representation at the Confederation of Lewiatan Entrepreneurs (comparable to the Italian Confindustria), the Polish Automotive Industry Association (PZPM), the Association for alternative fuels in Poland (PSPA), the Foundation for the promotion of electro-mobility in Poland (FPPE).

See you in November at the IABM 2021.