Aéro Montréal's Annual General Meeting - Aéro Montréal highlights positive 2011 achievements

MONTREAL, April 20, 2012 /CNW Telbec/ - In the presence of Sam Hamad, Minister of Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade, Aéro Montréal, Québec's aerospace cluster, showcased its many accomplishments in 2011 during its Annual General Meeting.

"Over the past three years, the aerospace industry has been the least affected by the slowdown of the global economy and several indicators show that the industry will return to growth in 2012," said Gilles Labbé, President and CEO of Héroux-Devtek and Chairman of the Board of Aéro Montréal. "Despite many unfavourable macro-economic conditions that affected the markets for business aviation and defense, the commercial aviation market had an excellent year with record shipments in terms of large aircraft. This is great news for our industry" he added.

Suzanne M. Benoît, President and CEO of Aéro Montréal, noted that there was an unprecedented mobilization among various industry players over the last year. "Thanks to the generous and invaluable assistance of our many members, we were able to multiply major achievements in 2011," she said. "The 2011 Aerospace Innovation Forum last December was a huge success, with nearly 700 participants, and no exception to this rule."

During the Annual General Meeting, Aéro Montréal unveiled for the first time recommendations of a White Paper resulting from the 2011 Aerospace Innovation Forum. On the theme of "Innovation in a sustainable supply chain: a global challenge," this major event examined, through numerous workshops, various ways to strengthen the cluster by developing the innovation capacity of all stakeholders.

"The 2011 Aerospace Innovation Forum led us to conclude that recommended changes in the way we manage innovation must above all be better integrated and planned in coordination," said Patrick Champagne, Chair of Aéro Montréal's Innovation Working Group and Vice President, Cockpits and Systems Integration, Esterline CMC Electronics. "Taking into account the challenges faced by our industry, cooperation is more than ever one of the most effective tools to ensure that our industry remains competitive."

About Aéro Montréal

Aéro Montréal, Québec's aerospace cluster, is a strategic think tank that groups all the major decision makers in Québec's aerospace sector, including companies, educational and research institutions, associations and unions.

Aéro Montréal's mission is to mobilize industry players around common goals and concerted actions to increase the cohesion and optimize competitiveness of Québec's aerospace cluster. It aims to foster the growth and expansion of the cluster so as to ensure that it may continue to create wealth for Montréal, Québec and Canada. To find out more about Aéro Montréal, visit www.aeroMontréal.ca.

For further information:

Noémie Mourot
Project Director, Strategy and communication
Aér Montréal
Tel. : [phone]
noemie.mourot@aeroMontréal.ca