The AKTRIN Furniture Information Center is setting up a new company in Germany in order to better serve its growing European clientele. Dr. Stefan Wille, president and founder of the AKTRIN Furniture Information Center says that AKTRIN has established a European representative office many years ago. The conversion of this office into a fully incorporated firm will give us more flexibility and better opportunities to pursue our European expansion plans. The new firm will be known as AKTRIN (Europa) GmbH and operate out of offices in Neuss (near Duesseldorf), in close collaboration with the long established and well-known firm 揟itze GmbH? The main activity of AKTRIN (Europa) will be the offering of consulting services as well as selling market studies and industry reports about the global furniture business.

The AKTRIN Furniture Information Center has been founded in 1985 in Canada and quickly expanded its network of subsidiaries to the USA (High Point) and Mexico. Meanwhile AKTRIN has gained a clear market dominance in North America, and it is our plan to gain the same dominance in Europe, Dr. Wille says.

Asked about the formula for AKTRIN's success, Stefan Wille explains that it is founded on a broad network of collaborative agreements with trade-associations, furniture research institutions, trade-magazines and universities. This has given us the capability to offer our clients a broad range of consulting services and marketing studies about the global furniture industry. Vice versa, our affiliated institutions are anxious to work with us as they see in such collaboration a mutual benefit.

Already well-established working relationships exist in Germany, the UK, Spain, Portugal and Austria. At the occasion of the conference "Markteinstieg USA" (Market Entry to the USA) on November 4, 2003 in Frankfurt, Dr. Wille spoke about the challenges and opportunities for German furniture manufacturers in the USA. The conference was sponsored by the German Furniture Export Association and offered AKTRIN an excellent opportunity to become still deeper entrenched in this country. Currently, negotiations about a collaborative working relationship are underway with IPEA in France.

Italy will be AKTRIN's target market for more aggressive customer acquisitions in 2004. Recent large consulting projects in Vietnam, Korea, Thailand and the Philippines give us an incentive to also set-up a permanent office in the Asian continent.

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