Mr. Max Cheung (Swank Optical) gave a detailed and general overview and analysis on the growing Chinese market. He also showed the opportunities for foreign investors and gave useful information about how to enter the Chinese market and in particular the sunglass market. Mrs. Jackie Mc Kenzie (Essilor) gave a lecture on the Australia market and its reputation as having the world's "strongest sun protection culture". In this context, she showed several projects and campaigns that have been realised in the past decades in order to inform the public about the right exposure to sun and it was clear that Europe can learn a lot from this culture.

"European Market Data - what can we learn from the Italian market"

Mr. Mark Mackenzie and Mr. Tony Kendall-Tobias (SWV) compared how Italian opticians performed with opticians in other countries. For example, the audience was told what percentage of Italian opticians sales are made with sunglasses and how profitable there business is compared to opticians in other counties. In addition the audience was given a short update on the "worldwide Plano Sunglasses market study" that was presented at the Annual Meeting last October.

Two Charts of the presentation: "European Market Data - what can we learn from the Italian market" and update on World Wide Sunglasses Study:

Bruno Palmegiani (De Rigo) explained his way of developing new trends and ideas and he also informed the audience about the latest fashion forecasts for sunglasses. Mr. Alain Mayer gave a lecture on EU regulations in which he pointed out that the right communication and good information at point-of-sale increases the consumer's ability to make an informed choice at purchase and minimises the risk of incorrect or inappropriate selection. Also, suppliers are able to enhance their commercial reputation and save time and money by reducing enquiries and complaints. Mr. John Bowis (MEP) told the audience about his work within the European Union and the scope for action and help on ESA's objectives. He also spoke about the importance of lobbying and shared some important information about the right way to lobby effectively within the community. In his closing statement he said that it was important to realise that the sunglass industry is "dealing with peoples' eyes and not just with fashion! Get in there and win!"

The last presentation of the conference dealt with "high performance Teams". Prof. Peter Pawlowsky (FOCUS) talked about the differences in productivity and efficiency of human performance in organisations. He showed that some teams and work systems are much more effective and more efficient due to specific conditions of the performance setting or the conductive ability of organisational variables.

ESA's European Sunglass Conference gave very interesting and useful information to everyone who attended it. The next ESA event is the Annual Meeting which will take place on the Wednesday evening before SILMO. Among other topics, ESA members will see a presentation of the new study on "the effects of ultraviolet radiation on the human eye"