January Message From FEIBP President
Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy New Year and all the best for a prosperous 2021. I trust you all enjoyed a good Christmas break, under whatever restricted conditions there were in your respective countries.
2020 was a challenging year for all of us. Some areas of our industry were particularly hard-hit by national restrictions and a large drop-off in demand back in spring 2020. Since the summer, our industry did manage to recover somewhat, and the remainder of the year was certainly better for the majority of our members. We, therefore, go into 2021 with hopefully a more optimistic outlook for our businesses, even though the next few months will see restrictions continue for all of us, especially regarding travel and contact with others. We can only hope that the planned vaccine roll-out will help us return to an element of normality later this year.
The pandemic also caused the cancellation of two major events in our industry calendar last year. Interbrush in Freiburg has now sensibly been rescheduled for May 2022 and our 62nd FEIBP Congress to be held in Prague, will now take place a year later than originally planned from September 23-25, 2021. We very much hope that the COVID-19 situation will have improved sufficiently, that a physical congress can take place in 2021. A decision on this will be taken by the FEIBP Board in early April to allow our members enough time to plan.
Kind regards,
Andrew McIlroy
