Around forty French companies will be present in the UBIFRANCE Pavilion to take part in the Middle East Electricity trade exhibition in Dubai from February 8 to 10th. The size of the representation sees France ranking 5th among the many participating nations, mostly through SMEs, with the exception of big companies such as SAGEM, SOCOMEC, SDMO and the SICAME Group which represent numerous channel sub-sections: electricity generators, transport and distribution equipment, lighting systems, electrical modelling software, etc.
This industry derives its strength from high value-added products and from its R&D investments. Accordingly, SDMO produces 1 to 3,300 kVA generators featuring the latest technology, thanks to its Power Solutions engineering cell. As for SOCOMEC, it produces leading-edge industrial UPS and circuit breakers thanks to a Plug & Play system comprising a fully-programmable source-transfer automatic switch.
France was also ranked 5th among exporting countries in 2007 with sales of €36b, representing a global export rate of 46.25%. The main clients were the European Union (39%) and Asia (23%) with EDF, ALSTOM, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC, AREVA and LEGRAND as the main suppliers. With over two thousand companies employing a workforce of 390,000, the sector boasted a €78b turnover that same year.
Most of those companies are grouped into the Federation of Electrical, Electronic and Communication Industries (FIEEC) and in particular the group of industries in electrical equipment, control and related services (GIMELEC). The Nuclear Industry Inter-syndicate Group (GIIN) and the Renewable Energy Syndicate (SER) both coexist outside that Federation.
This powerful sector in the French economy has also five competitiveness clusters: CAPENERGIES (renewable energy), DERBI (renewable energy in construction and industry), TERNERRDIS (renewable energy), S2E2 (electrical energy) and PNB (nuclear energy).
