Confirmed: next UITIC congress will take place in Italy
Speculation that Italy’s footwear and tanning industry machinery manufacturers’ association, Assomac, and UITIC, the International Union of Shoe Industry Technicians, were preparing to make a major announcement about the UITIC International Footwear Technology Congress has proved to be correct.
The next congress will take place in Italy in September 2023, the two organisations announced at a joint press conference on June 29.
This, the twenty-first congress, had been due to take place in China in 2021. UITIC and host organisation the China Leather Industry Association (CLIA) announced in February 2021 that, because of the covid pandemic, they had decided to postpone the event until this year.
Covid-19 restrictions have continued into 2022 making visits to China difficult and hosting international events there all-but impossible. “In our discussions with CLIA, we decided that we could not even be certain about being able to hold the congress there in 2023,” UITIC president, Yves Morin, said at the press conference, in response to a question from footwearbiz.
Instead, UITIC is working in close partnership with Assomac to have the XXI International Footwear Technology Congress in Italy. The congress will run in parallel with the Simac-Tanning Tech exhibition in Milan and will take place in two host cities: Milan and Vigevano, a city with a long tradition of producing footwear, footwear components and footwear technology.
The programme will include factory visits and a day at Simac-Tanning Tech in addition to talks, presentation and keynote speeches.
Assomac president, Maria Vittoria Brustia, said much more detailed information would be available about the congress at the 2022 edition of Simac-Tanning Tech, which will take place in Milan from September 20-22 this year.
Yves Morin concluded by saying that UITIC had been unable to wait any longer for the situation in China to become clearer. The last congress took place in Oporto in 2018, meaning five years will have passed before the next one. In addition, he pointed out that UITIC was founded in 1972 and, therefore, is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. “We will celebrate it in Milan and Vigevano in 2023,” he said. “Everyone is disappointed not to have been able to hold the congress in China as planned, but our colleagues in China only have to wait a little bit longer because it is our intention to hold our twenty-second congress in China in 2025 or 2026.”
Image: Solazzo Calzature, Vigevano.
