Triple triumph for BeePasha
A winning debut of the corrugated show, a hit conference and satisfied exhibitors

The India story is no longer limited to the North and the West. The South has long since been at the forefront of the IT revolution and the preferred destination for the automotive industry. In more recent times, the southern states are witnessing a big growth

in the garments, pharmaceuticals, food processing, beverages and the retail industries among other segments. In turn, this is leading to a greater demand for more and better packaging. The Package Converters and Printers as well as the Corrugated box manufacturer are busy and growing. And all of them- the users, printers and suppliers to the industry turned up in numbers at the 'triple show' and the accompanying conference at Chennai to meet up with BeePasha, the show mascot and to make the event a great success.

`We should have more such events in this part of the country,` opined R. Suresh, the President of the All India Federation of Master Printers (AIFMP), who was the Chief Guest at the event and inaugurated the show on the 30th of September at the Chennai Trade Center. He also promised full support of his association to make a 'mini drupa' of the forthcoming editions of the show.

The inaugural session also saw the release of the exhibitor’s catalogue at the hands of Harish Madan, President, Federation of Corrugated Box Manufacturers Associations (FCBM). The federation was supporting the event and was the prime mover behind

the debutant India Corrugated Show, one of the three elements of the 'triple show'. `We hope that Print-Packaging.com and FCBM will continue to work together in the years to come and provide the industry with a vibrant platform to meet and interact,` he said.

The triple show attracted over 5000 visitors over the 4-day period. `The visitors were of very high quality and knowledgeable,` said Vinay Sarogi of Expert Industries, one of the exhibitors to the show. The visitors came from all over the South and from other places in the country. `We expected a show in Chennai to be regional in nature. However, we are pleasantly surprised to see visitors from all over the country and abroad,` said Ajay Jain of Jainco Ink and Chemicals. The foreign visitors included leading converters and corrugators from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The exhibition itself was spread over 2500 sq m and featured over 160 exhibitors. The commitment of the exhibitors was

visible from the several running machines that were on display and the well-decorated stands. “We have never seen an exhibition with such an ambience in Chennai,” said a visitor.

The running machines included homegrown label presses at the stands of Fortunes Unlimited, Jandu Engineering, R K Machines and Apex Rototech. Global Graphics were demonstrating a Sam Sung letterpress label printing machine from Korea at their stand. The Jandu Press was sold to Millennium Papers of Chennai during the show. “We have over a dozen firm enquiries,” said an elated Vinay Dayal. Distributors of Orthotec, Focus, Labelmen, Edale, Iwasaki, Rototek, Taiyo and Gidue narrow web presses had put up information booths.

The leading global wide web flexo presses were featured at the Windmoller and Holscher stand and at the stand of Reifenhauser, the Indian distributors for Fisher & Krecke. The homegrown presses were featured at Flexcon Engineers’ stand. Marson Printgraf was giving live demos of its flexo press.

The providers of paper, films, adhesives and inks were all there as were the distributors for the world’s best brands in press accessories. Among the popular displays were the print defect detection systems at the stands of BST Sayona and ATE Industries. ANI Inks India (P) Ltd. was promoting the new identity of XSYS Print Solutions formed after the global merger of ANI with BASF printing systems.

The event marked the establishing of the India Corrugated Show as an exclusive event for the corrugated packaging industry. With exhibitors from all over the country and abroad and several running machines, the event was a spectacular success. “The managing committee meeting of FCBM and the AGM of SICBM happening at the same time has ensured that this event has been established firmly as the industry event,” said the CEO of a leading corrugated box manufacturing company from the region. The view found echo in the statements of most of the exhibitors that were happy with the firm orders that were finalized at the venue. “All the machineries on display were sold and many enquiries generated,” said Gurpartap Singh of Harbhajan Singh & Co.

Info Package 2005 conference saw full houses in all the three sessions. Wolfgang Klos-Geiger, the publisher of

‘Flexo & Gravure’ and ‘NarrowebTech’ magazines, inaugurated the conference. Klos-Gieger, who is now a regular visitor to India and has been a roving ambassador for the Indian industry, found the response to the conference in Chennai overwhelming. “The tremendous response here points to the evolving of the India Converting Show and its accompanying conference as an important international event.”

The conference was organized by the Indian Institute of Packaging and had three half-day sessions on flexography printing, converting technologies and corrugated box packaging. The conference featured 16 speakers from India and abroad who were experts in their fields and focused on the latest developments and trends that would help the converters and brand owners to add more value to the package viz. the conference theme: Increasing market share by using value added technologies on package production.

“It has been great working with Print-Packaging.com and we hope that this partnership will grow in the future,” said a visibly satisfied Rajiv Dhar, the director of Indian Institute of packaging, who was also a keynote speaker at the conference.

An extensive feedback was taken from the exhibitors at the venue and the organizers announced the next India Corrugated Show to be held at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi from 1- 4 September 2006. The next edition of India Converting Show and India Flexo Show will also be in New Delhi in August 2007.