SARIO at IAA Frankfurt

The Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency participated at the 67th IAA 2017 in Frankfurt, Germany from 14th until 18th September. The consultants of SARIO represented the agency at a joint stand with AeroMobil (Slovak company, developers of the most advanced flying car to date), where they successfully promoted “Good Ideas from Slovakia”. While the representatives of the agency were focused on promoting the Slovak investment environment, AeroMobil crew exhibited the latest version of their flying car, which is being developed in Bratislava.

This year’s IAA, carrying the slogan "Future now“, was aimed to cover all current dominant mobility trends such as autonomous driving, digitalization, electric mobility and other alternative powertrains. IAA’s more than 200 000m2 of exhibition grounds hosted 228 world premieres from across the industry, which attracted around 10,000 journalists. The car show will end on the 24th of September and is expected to have around
930,000 visitors.

SARIO was part of this exhibition as one of the 1000 exhibitors from 34 countries. Generally, it was the first time that a Slovak governmental institution was represented on IAA’s exhibition grounds, as previous governmental activities were usually linked with various seminars in the Congress Center. The Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic, in cooperation with SARIO decided to present Slovakia’s automotive innovation potential on this year’s IAA in a new format, through the latest concept of AeroMobil flying car. This cooperation ensured major visibility for Slovakia, its innovation potential, investment environment and automotive industry. SARIO consultants have also used this opportunity to proactively search for investment opportunities and raise awareness about the advantages of Slovakia throughout the exhibition.

On September 18th SARIO also took part at VDA’s (German Association of the Automotive Industry) event – IAA Symposium „Combustion engine – problem or part of the solution?“, which was dedicated to the Visegrad Group countries. More than 100 participants attended the successful seminar, which was among others co-organized by the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Berlin and the Imrich Donath, Honorary Consul of Hessen. Slovakia and the Czech Republic were represented on expert level by the representatives of National automotive associations, while Hungary and Poland on the state secretary level from respective Ministries of Economy.

This year’s speaker on behalf of the Slovak automotive industry was Dr. h.c. prof. Juraj Sinay – the President of the Slovak Automotive Association (ZAP). Karl Lindenmann, General Director of the German Association of the Automotive Industry , as well as the Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Clemens Fuest also actively contributed with their speeches to the expert discussion during the seminar. The event also touched upon the joint declaration of the national automotive associations of the V4 countries, which calls upon gradual ecologization of the automotive sector in the region, while maintaining its competitiveness on the global market.