IBARMIA and COFIDES have worked hand-in-hand since this family enterprise, specialising in the design and manufacture of high technology machining plants, decided to conduct business in China, the world’s number one consumer of machined tools.

After over 10 years of commercialising products in the Middle Kingdom, in 2017 the SME, headquartered at Azkoitia in the Spanish province of Guipuzkoa, benefitted from COFIDES support to enter into a joint venture with a local partner. Today that company is a wholly owned IBARMIA subsidiary.

"COFIDES’s support has proven instrumental to undertake this operation, China is a strategic market for our company and today the primary source of our sales”

Koldo Arandia, IBARMIA Chairman and CEO

In 2020 the two companies took a further step to strengthen the firm’s position on that market. COFIDES granted the SME a M€2 joint venture loan, drawing from FONPYME and its own funds. IBARMIA has allocated a total M€4 to purchase the entire host company and its inventory.

COFIDES attaches utmost importance to favouring SME growth abroad and especially the expansion of companies committed to innovation and to contributing to the sustainable use of resources.

IBARMIA Chairman and CEO Koldo Arandia notes that ‘purchasing the entire company constituted a substantial challenge for us in light of the uncertainty growing out of the pandemic-induced crisis. COFIDES’s support has proven instrumental to undertake this operation, China is a strategic market for our company and today the primary source of our sales’.

Related SDGs

sdg8   sdg9