VERONA, ITALY -- The inauguration for Marmomac 2021 was held during the first day of the show and attended by Maurizio Danses, president of Veronafiere; Federico Sboarina, the mayor of Verona; Marco De Angelis, the president of Confindustria Marmomacchine; Roberto Luongo, the CEO ICE Italian Trade & Investment Agency; Manuel Scalzotto, the president of the Province of Verona; and Luca Zaia, the president of the Veneto region. Following the inauguration was a musical interlude organized by the Arena Foundation, performing the famous airs of the opera festival.

Show management reports that a total of 45% of the 756 exhibiting companies come from abroad, totaling 329 companies from 39 different countries. Specifically, 80 companies have traveled from Turkey, 15 from Brazil, 11 from Egypt and six from Iran. These figures are also backed up by numerous international delegations of buyers, architects and importers of slabs and technologies from the U.S., Canada, Russia and the Maghreb (Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia).

“Veronafiere has made a major commitment to the world of natural stone because Marmomac is its ‘home,’ as it belongs to and represents all its protagonists,” explained Danses. “This is the spirit that guided us in designing and creating an edition through which we aim to provide effective assistance towards the recovery of this important Made in sector Italy, which before COVID was worth almost 3.9 billion euros on a national scale, with a total of 3,200 companies and around 34,000 employees. Resuming the attended in-person format this year after the lockdown with the highest safety standards is a positive sign and a further step towards the return to normality."