From September 16 to September 21, 2013, this year’s EMO Hannover will be opening its doors.  At the world’s premier trade fair for the metal-working sector, manufacturers of machine tools and components will be showcasing products, solutions and services for meeting and mastering the challenges involved in industrial production operations.  “The whole world over, the industrial sector is facing major challenges”, says Dr. Wilfried Schäfer, executive director of the EMO’s organizer VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’ Association) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.  In every country, he explains, rising levels of affluence are also triggering a concomitant demand for better, more modern products. And the key to this is machine tools.  Social mega-trends like infrastructural upgrading, mobility, energy, nutrition or health are requiring enhanced performance capabilities from the industrial sector and are thus also boosting machine tool consumption.  “The EMO Hannover 2013 will be showing trade visitors from the international user industries the technologies that will enable them to meet and master the challenges their production processes are facing,” explains Schäfer. The international machine tool market has more than tripled in the past 20 years up to 2012, to around $85 billion.  Since the turn of the millennium, machine tool consumption on a dollar basis has grown by an annual average of almost 7 percent.  The principal driver here was Asia, where in 2012 two-thirds of total worldwide machine tool production output was consumed. For the full report, visit the website below: