Having more than 3 billion dollars of global trade volume, the milling machinery industry gathered seventh times in IDMA 2017 Exhibition which is the only international meeting platform in this industry. The leading 218 companies in the world came together with the investors from 101 countries in the exhibition held between 04 and 07 May 2017.

218 companies in milling machinery industry which has more than 3 billion dollars of global trade volume came together with 7.069 investors from more than 101 countries seventh times in IDMA 2017 Exhibition. The exhibitor companies, significant suppliers in the industry, made a lot of agreements for turnkey plants, production lines and material supply during the exhibition, held in Istanbul between 04 and 07 May 2017.

REFRESHING THE INDUSTRY Supported by nearly 30 significant industry unions and associations around the world, IDMA Exhibition attracted attentions more than 7 thousand visitors from different nationalities for 4 days. Receiving investors especially from Middle East, Africa and Asia, the exhibition managed to refresh the industry in this economic recession. The representatives of 19 non-governmental and public institutions from 12 countries participated in the opening ceremony of the exhibition which was held in 4th of May. Some of the significant representatives participating in the opening ceremony of the exhibition are as follows: Ahmad Zaki FAZLI - President of Nangarhar Afghan Agricultural Training Center (NATC), Abdellatif IZEM - President of Morocco’s National Federation of Milling, Erhan ÖZMEN - President of Southeastern Flour Industrialists’ Association, Gülfem EREN - President of Grain Suppliers Association, Sadek MAMURI - Iraq Babel Chamber of Commerce, Mahmoud Abduhassan ALLAITHY - Representative of Iraq Diwaniyah Chamber of Commerce, Ali Zaer MOTEAB - Director of Milling Department (The General Company for Trading & Processing Grain of Iraq), Majid Movafegh GHADIRLY - President of Iran Feed Industry Association, Moussa COULIBALY - General Manager of The Mali Business and Orientation Center, Mahmoud RIYADH - General Secretary of Egyptian Milling Society, Gaye AMADOU - President of Senegal National Federation of Bakers, Prof. Dr. Mustafa BAYRAM - Association of Pulse and Grain Processing Technologies, Storage and Analysis Systems, Abdülkadir KÜLAHÇIOĞLU - President of Association of Turkish Pasta Manufacturers, and Rodion RYBCHINSKIY - President of Union “Millers of Ukraine”.

IDMA gathers global market of 10 billion dollars IDMA Exhibition which is held in Hall 1, 2 and 3 of Istanbul Expo Center, and continued 4 days, gathers machinery producers and end products producers in flour, feed, rice, pulses and pasta industries. The total trade volume of this industry on technology basis is almost 10 billion dollars. IDMA is the unique international exhibition in this international market. Therefore, the flour, feed, rice and pasta producers around the world, who are planning to invest in their factories and machines attach high importance to visiting IDMA Exhibition, held in every 2 years, in order to see the latest technologies closely and to make the best investment by comparing the technologies with their alternatives.

137 local and 81 foreign, totally 218 companies exhibited at IDMA 2017 Exhibition. While 58 foreign companies directly participated in the exhibition, 23 of them took part with their representatives.

218 company with a booth in 3 halls comprising of an area of 33,000 sqm presented the latest technologies used in flour, semolina, corn, rice and feed milling and pulse cleaning, packaging, pasta and biscuit plants, and the latest innovations in storage silos, loading, conveying and unloading systems; laboratory devices; additives; packaging machines and materials; spare parts and sub-industry to the taste of the visitors. Regarding the density of visitors by product groups, it seems that flour, semolina and corn mills which are the main categories of the exhibition show more interest to the exhibition. The share of flour, semolina and corn mills in all visitors is 52 percent.

However, in IDMA 2017 Exhibition, unlike the former exhibitions, the number of visitors for feed industry has also increased significantly. The vision of specialized areas that was implemented in 2017 Exhibition and the works done for this vision contributed significantly to this increase. Also, the ratio of feed producers in total number of visitors, which was 5 percent in 2015, reached to 20 percent, a record level in 2017 Exhibition.

Rice mills and pulse processing companies follow feed producers. The ratio of this group in the total number of visitors has decreased and remained at 12 percent. The visitor group consisting of pasta producers which increased in the previous exhibition remained at nearly the same level in 2017 Exhibition.

Training support to flour and feed industry “Certified Milling Training”, organized by Miller Magazine under the name of “Technical Days”, was held during IDMA 2017 Exhibition. More than 100 people participated in the training which was held synchronously with the exhibition between 05 and 07 May 2017.

On the first day of the training which covered two different areas as grain (flour) milling and feed milling, common issues related with both areas were discussed. On the third and fourth days of the training, separate trainings were synchronously held for flour and feed producers in two different halls. The training provided by the academicians and industry professionals aroused interest. At the end of the training, all the participants had their certificates.