Converting: Opportunities Galore
The Indian economy is growing and so is the Packaging industry. As growth rides on increased industrial production and international trade, demands on package converters have become more intense and sophisticated.

Within India, increasing penetration of organised retail (including foreign players who are large consumers of flexible packaging solutions) and increasing preference for branded products has added fuel to the demand for flexible packaging solutions. Machines and advanced technologies for printing and converting packaging materials for the Flexible Packaging Industry has come up to meet the rising requirement.

The Indian Label Industry is growing at a rate of more than 15% with several press manufacturers and label converters gearing up to challenges. The industry has rapidly evolved and is global in its outlook and delivery.

There are close to 5,000 box plants scattered throughout the subcontinent in classic developing-country industry fashion, mostly fragmented and family-owned.

So how does the country meet this ever increasing demand?

The larger Indian converters have been adopting the latest technologies and several high-end machines have been installed in the country in the past few years. These machines are largely imported from the western countries, with Germany and Italy accounting for almost 45% of the total packaging machinery imports. However, as the need to upgrade is felt by the smaller converters and corrugators and many commercial printers diversify into package printing, there is an increasing focus on machines made in Taiwan, Korea and also China. Meantime, the Indian machinery manufacturers have also geared up and are today making machines that are lapped up by the growing industry in India. Some of these machinery manufacturers are also making inroads in the export markets and are moving beyond the traditional Asian neighbours and the countries in the Gulf to South Africa, East Europe and even South America.

However, the present per capita consumption of packaging in the country is dramatically lower than the global averages. All the pointers indicate that the packaging industry is set to move to a higher level of growth between 20-25% from the present level of around 12-15 percent.

The packaging converting sector is growing at 15-18% and there is a marked shift from the unorganised segment becoming more organised. The industrial growth in India has seen top players in the A and B tier segments reap high benefits. More importantly, this growth has acted as a catalyst for the aspirations of the C and D tier packagers who are making a concerted effort to move from unorganised to organised operations; from manual to automation.

This has led to greater demand for converting machines. The potential of growth is much larger and unrealized. India Converting Show 2011 will provide a platform to explore the opportunities in this segment.

Flexography: Growing Demands
World over, Flexography has become the pre-dominant medium for package printing. The use of flexo has also been growing in India. Several sophisticated CI flexo presses have been installed in the past six months. The booming label industry is riding a narrow web flexo invasion as folding carton manufacturers also take a look at this technology.

As India slowly adapts to the global trend where flexo occupies the predominant position for package printing, hosts of opportunities are opening up for Indian converters and the suppliers.

The Indian corrugators have been increasingly adopting flexo printing with water-based inks. The coming years should see a larger share of printing going to flexo in the converting and corrugating industries.

India Flexo Show 2011 will provide a platform to this growing segment of the converting industry.

Corrugation: Future Trends
The packaging industry in India has been registering a constant growth rate of 15%. The Corrugated packaging industry is however finding itself at the crossroads. Increasing prices of kraft paper, non availability of international standard papers at affordable prices, resistance of corrugated box user industry to offer sustainable prices, increasing competition, non viability of automatic plants are proving to be hurdles in the growth path.

Despite these adverse circumstances, the industry is all set to take on the challenges and look at the future opportunities. As global companies set up their manufacturing bases in India to meet the growing demand for consumer and white goods – the need for high quality boxes is appearing evident. Progressive Corrugators are setting up automatic board/box making plants to increase production and enhance performance of boxes. In house printing on corrugated is becoming imperative.

All this portends well for the industry. Insurgence of corrugated packaging machines from neighboring China and Taiwan will prove to be a threat as well as a great opportunity considering the inherent capabilities and experience of Indian Corrugated Machinery Manufacturers. Strategic alliances with overseas machinery manufacturers are already happening and will soon become a norm.

Reflecting these trends, India Corrugated Show 2011 will provide a platform for technologies that will trigger the future growth of the corrugated box industry.