BeePasha Wows Colombo

She came, she saw and she won many a hearts. BeePasha stormed the Sri Lankan capital along with her entourage on the 15th July. The day long event at the Hotel Taj Samudra brought together over 25 leading companies in a table top exhibition along with a conference that featured six top presentations on various subjects that were designed to whet the appetite of the Lankan converters and package buyers, many of whom confirmed their intention to visit the Chennai shows. An instant admirer was the Cheif Guest Tilanga Sumathipala, the CEO of the Sumathi Group of Industries. He not only exhorted the gathered delegates to visit Chennai in large numbers, he went on to predict over 200 visitors would visit the show from the island country.

Earlier, Sumathipala inaugurated the conference by lighting the traditional lamp witnessed by nearly 150 delegates who had negotiated the wet morning traffic snarls of Colombo to be at the venue by 9:00 AM. `The package meet is designed to act as a platform for interaction among the converters, suppliers and users of packaging in the South Asian countries,” said Anil Arora, President of Print-Packaging.com (P) Ltd, welcoming the delegates to the first leg of the inaugural event. The second leg would see the meet moving to Dhaka on the 18th July. “While the meet complements the triple show that will be held at Chennai, it is a complete B2B event in itself,” continued Arora. He also expressed the hope that in the coming years the meet can be taken to Lahore and Khatmandu among other neighbouring countries.

The inaugural session of the meet featured A A Joshi of Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP), Dharamatilake Ratnayake, President of Asian Packaging Federation (APF) as well as the President of the Sri Lanka Institute of Packaging (SLIP) and Keerthi Gunawardhane, President of the Sri Lanka Association of Printers (SLAP). In his welcome address, Joshi greeted the dignitaries and the delegates present and gave a background of the event. Ratnayake spoke about the balancing act that he was required to perform as a representative of a pan Asian organization, a national Institute and a Sri Lankan company engaged in the manufacture of packaging. He emphatically stated that such events should be used to promote the technologies, equipment and materials and there should be a restraint on using the forum to market finished printing goods. The view found an echo in Gunawardhane’s presentation when he said, “Such events can become very useful if the sensibilities of the host nation are respected”.

The technical presentations featured six presentations that were woven around the theme “Increasing market share by using value added technologies in package production” The speakers were best in the business.

Thomas Andersen of Flexo Image Graphics, a sponsor for the conference spoke about the latest trends in inline converting for labels, flexible packaging and folding cartons. Participating in the tabletop exhibition, he used the occasion to announce the plans for the company’s new office in Colombo.

Creed Engineers was also a sponsor for the conference. Ranesh Bajaj took off from where Thomas left and examines the advantages and disadvantages of the various print processes and zeroed on to combination presses that offer the best solution for various applications.

Tarun Kumar of Xaar India examined the growing role of inkjet printing in packaging. Harveer Sigh Sahani of Weldon Celloplast Ltd. examined the role of labels in product security and brand protection. A K Dutta of Kurz India spoke about the value addition to package with the use of stamping foils. Siva S Nagarajan of Shandilyam Automation detailed the role of Barcode in the globalised marketplace.

The tabletop exhibition was a parallel event happening in an adjacent hall. The exhibition featured 25 Indian and a Sri Lankan company representing various segments of package production. The tables were crowded most of the day as nearly 200 visitors made it to the show over the daylong event. “This has been a very satisfying event for us. We hope it will open up new avenues for us in the growing Sri Lankan market,” said Baldev Singh Jandu of Jandu Engineers- a view that was shared by all the exhibitors in the tabletop exhibition.

Date: 25-Jul-2005

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