During the Motorization Week in the Ministry of the Economy, in the seat of the ministry, on 27 November 2014 there was the annual Conference of Independent Automotive Aftermarket with a record number of participants - 350.
The subject of the meeting, as usual, was the summary of current situation of Polish aftermarket. The discussion also touched the perspectives of its further development. The meeting was participated by vice-premier and minister for the economy, Janusz Piechociński, who emphasised the importance and potential of automotive industry for the development of the country in his opening speech.
"(...) we have built a new quality, not only on the side of services, but also by getting to a different level of taking part in trade of spare parts and vehicle elements. The success of Inter Cars showed that we can. (...) World giants, car assembly plants are operating on our market, but (...) there is a sector of great Polish success. Those companies which learned from the biggest. Which very often stared as a small garage and later transformed into their present form. (...) Because of this, small and medium companies play such an important part in these processes of change. This independent sector."
Further on, Robert Kierzek - president of Inter Cars and Alfred Franke - president of Automotive Spare Parts Distributors and Manufacturers Association delivered a presentation on current market situation in Poland and in Europe. The presentation showed that automotive industry is a substantial part of European and also Polish economy. 242m vehicles are registered in EU, and the value of parts manufactured for them is estimated at around EUR 82bn. In Poland, the sales revenues of the automotive industry come from manufacturing activities in 55% (according to statistical department - over PLN 59.3bn yearly), out of which a half is exported, mainly to Germany. Profit generated this way is three times higher than by export of coal, coke and briquette altogether. The speakers drew attention to investment done by the manufacturers of spare parts in Poland, among others, the factory of Lumag, which was built for over PLN 70m, or Delphi technological park created for over PLN 24m. The analysis also included the summary of situation of Polish independent garages, which constitute 92% of all garages in Poland and service around 90% of Customers.
Also the freedom of competition on the market of spare parts and law regulations applying to it were discussed during the meeting. Robert Kierzek, president of the board of Inter Cars and Bogumił Papierniok, CEO of Moto-Profil - summarized their experiences from past several years of Euro 5 directive being in force (715/2007), and Alfred Franke presented a similar analysis of regulation MV BER/GVO (461/2010). The speakers pointed out the biggest threats for independent aftermarket, i.e.:
- limited access to technical information and telematics;
- difficult identification of spare parts (Euro 5 does not include trucks, and also does not stipulate when, after the premiere of a new model, technical data on it must be made available by manufacturer);
- lack of access to monopolized parts by carmakers;
- not obeying the law providing freedom of choice of the place of servicing the vehicle during guarantee period.
A common conclusion, which resulted from most of presentations, is a need of starting up effective activities and implementing legal solutions which would make execution of laws more effective, so that small and medium companies and independent garages could offer their products and services in compliance with the rules of free and fair competition.
National project of implementing a central register of technical checks presented during the conference by Łukasz Twardowski - deputy director of Road Transport Department, and the initiative of creating a European system of rescue information eCall, presented by Henry Wasing from FIGIEFA wake up much interest. Both those projects assume establishing open, safe and standardized systems of cars, to which equal access will be granted to all players of the automotive industry.
The debate closed the meeting, with participation of: Robert Kierzek, Bogumił Papierniok, Paweł Hańczewski - trade director in Robert Bosch and Sławomir Góralewski - IAM sales director Poland, Czech Republik, Slovakia TRW Automotive Aftermarket. It was on different aspects of threats for the independent aftermarket and selling parts on-line.
During the conference, all invited guests took part in interactive surveys. Moderate optimism was seen in given answers. The answer to the question: "Are you planning and investment in developing storage or office area in the coming year?" was: 70% of representatives of distribution companies said "yes", and 88% of representatives of branches and trade partners of distributors said the same.
Source: e-autonaprawa. pl
2014-12-03
back