Mr. Dirk Vanmeirhaeghe (FBT) new CINET president

 

Berlin; The 1^st of April last CINET; the European Association for Professional Textile Care organised her General Assembly and conference in Berlin, Germany.

 

This event was highlighted by the nomination of Mr. D. Vanmeirhaeghe, chairman of the Belgium Federation of Textile Care (FBT).

The appointment of Mr. Vanmeirhaeghe followed the withdrawal of Mr. Théo Lagrange who as no longer available for re-election because of his health. Mr. Théo Lagrange has been a well known and appreciated president for the last 10 years. CINET is Mr. Lagrange extremely grateful for his contribution to the progress of the PTC industry in general and CINET in particular.

 

In his acceptance speech the new CINET president, Mr. Vanmeirhaeghe stated to feel very honoured and privileged to be offered this appointment and expressed his gratitude for the trust and confidence of the CINET members. He declared CINET is committed to her mission in becoming a well structured, strong and reputed umbrella organisation for the dry cleaning and laundry industry to consumer and business to business in Europe.

 

CINET is working hard to achieve this object and demonstrated a firm commitment during the conference by introducing an ambitious Action Plan 2007 a.o. including participation in the European Leonardo programme, lobbying on Care Labelling, the introduction of a new industrial care symbol and soil contamination, the organisation of a Professional Textile Conference in Shanghai (in cooperation with Messe Frankfurt Germany/Shanghai and Chinese National Light Industry Machinery Association (CNLIMA)) and a project on the European Environmental Legislation.

An extensive and well documented website is opened for CINET members, and news is communicated through frequent E-news and the CINET Magazine.

CINET pledges for a reduced VAT rate for domestic textile cleaning already for many years. This is based upon strong arguments considering the labour intensity, price sensitivity of textile cleaning and hence the VAT balances for the government. Additionally by adopting lower VAT rate of textile cleaning, black labour can be reduced.

Recently there is a new European initiative on reduced VAT rates under the chairmanship of England. This initiative proposes to extend the experiment for a reduced VAT rate for another 5 years.

Based upon this initiative CINET organized her members to address this critical issue by sending the proper authorities in each country a strong plea for a lower rate for the textile cleaning, based upon research over the last years.

 

More information, if needed, will be available at +31 344 65 04 30, info@cinet-online.net, www.cinet-online.net. Address: CINET, P.O. Box 10, NL-4060 GA OPHEMERT,