There will be lump breakers, rolling mills and mixers, as well as single-layer tunnel kilns that improve brick firing, thanks to their high internal pressures that balance equivalent external counter pressures. There will also be hot-air generators for drying, presses, conveyor belts and booths for processing ceramics. All of these share the clearly distinguishing features of Italian-made innovation and quality, of which certain important building material districts (the province of Modena, in Emilia Romagna, in particular, among others) provide the most important expressions.

Visitors and industry operators at the Mosbuild exhibition in Moscow, from April 6^th to 9^th, will not be able to ignore the Italian pavilion, which will be one of the most varied and interesting. 37 companies will be participating, almost all of which are leaders in their specific sectors. All of them are committed to showing the increasingly sophisticated and innovative results of a technological research that not even the economic crisis of the last year was able to halt.

The Italian collective, which is co-ordinated by the Italian Trade Commission, will start from the strong point of their prominent positions in the Russian market. Italy occupies an excellent third place (after Spain and China) in ceramic imports, with a market share of 20.5%. It occupies the leading position, however, in the sector of processing machines and equipment for ceramics and bricks (with a total market share of 36.9%, followed at some distance by Germany, with a share of 27.2%) and also in the shaping machine segment, which accounts for 48.1% of total imports from Italy.

As well as confirmations, there should also be new business opportunities, and Italian companies are ready to take up the challenge in an exhibition which is one of the most important in the sector worldwide. The last edition of Mosbuild involved the participation of 2,483 exhibitors, with more than 98,000 visitors, most of whom were operators in the sector.

Therefore not even attention to taste will be overlooked in the Italian pavilion, with an abundance of bathroom accessories, both plain and highly coloured, light, easy to handle and with quality standards to make them immediately become objects of desire for many. There will also be tiles and flooring, of which the materials will be the most important “detail”.

In the first place, porcelain stoneware, the true jewel in the crown of Italian manufacture, which is a ceramic with a compact, hard and non-porous body, known for its very low levels of water absorption.

It should also not be forgotten that an important part of the Italian display at the show will consist of paints, with the presentation of ever new colours and the possibility of tailored support for products that are qualitatively and technologically in step with the demands of the market. There will also be frits, glazes, screen printing media and pigments for obtaining very high-quality results.