Eric Pierrejean, CEO, JEC group
JEC World has just celebrated its 60th anniversary. What were the highlights of
this year’s event?
The 2025 edition, which took place from 4 to 6 March, marked JEC World’s 60th anniversary. Since 1965, JEC has developed uninterruptedly in parallel with the growth of the composites industry. JEC has successively occupied different sites in Paris and has been a customer of Viparis for 50 years. Since its first edition in 1975 at the Palais des Congrès de la Porte Maillot, the show has subsequently been held at the CNIT, then at Porte de Versailles and finally at Paris Nord Villepinte, close to CDG airport. Celebrating its 60th anniversary, this year’s show was the biggest ever, in terms of exhibitors, countries represented and number of visitors, which underlined the importance of this anniversary.
The celebrations began in January with the JEC World Première, a real ‘warm-up’ for the show during which the JEC Composites Innovation Awards were presented in 11 categories, with 11 winners and 33 finalists chosen by an international jury of experts, and the finalists in the Startup Booster competition were announced. In addition, on the eve of the show’s opening, we brought together many of the world’s leading composites industry executives for the JEC Leadership Circle, which featured a programme of inspiring keynotes and a prestigious evening at the Pavillon Gabriel. This event opened the ‘Paris Composites Week’, as JEC World remains the world’s leading composites trade fair, with more than 100 countries represented, divided between 1,356 exhibitors, 27 regional and national pavilions, 17 international delegations and a record attendance of more than 45,000 visitors. The week also attracts other industry events, such as the annual SAMPE Summit, which takes place on the Monday before JEC World.
This year, a representative of the European Commission honoured us with her presence for the launch of the ‘European Composites Circular Alliance’, as did the President of MEDEF, who was able to meet the French leaders of our industry. Other highlights of the show included the launch of some highly significant innovations, numerous partnerships signed, working meetings with the world’s leading associations, and so on. Not forgetting, in a nod to the last Vendée Globe race, a day dedicated to Sports, with a focus on top-level sailing, in the company of skippers, architects and manufacturers.
How does JEC maintain and develop its international leadership?
JEC World is the world’s leading trade fair in its field, insofar as other events are at best regional in scope. This positioning is in line with our DNA and our main mission, which is to connect composites players around the world, the baseline ‘JEC: Connecting the World with composites’ being the best illustration of this.
We work with numerous associations, as close as possible to research and industry, fulfilling our role of animating communities via numerous events of various kinds: one-day conferences, JEC Composites Talks, business meetings, JEC Forums, etc. In 2025, our programme includes a JEC Forum DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), a JEC Forum Italy and a JEC Forum Central Europe in Krakow, Poland, as well as a JEC Talks in Saudi Arabia.
Promosalons supports JEC in marketing and promoting its events in several countries. What
is the added value of the Promosalons network in these missions?
Thanks to its network, Promosalons is very effective in finding exhibitors and visitors in several countries, such as Korea and Japan. Its missions sometimes go as far as setting up country pavilions when local associations are struggling to do so.
In addition, the network is active alongside us in designing and organising Talks and Forums, enabling us to identify the potential for developing pavilions at JEC World.