Report UK Pavilion at Plastivision 2013

Between the 12th and 16th December 2013 the British Plastics Federation (BPF) once again organised the British Pavilion at Plastivision which takes place every three years in Mumbai.  The Pavilion featured a total of 13 British exhibitors and it was the second time the BPF have organised the British Pavilion at the fair.  The show which is now firmly in the Top 10 shows for plastics worldwide covered a total of 6 halls and attracted over 100,000 visitors and 1,500 exhibitors. The British Pavilion was located right by the entrance to Hall 6, which also featured International Pavilions from China, Taiwan, Korea and for the first time a small pavilion from Italy.   The second day proved to be the busiest with more than 25,000 recorded visitors in attendance. The show is growing in international importance each year but is still made up largely of Indian exhibitors (which totalled well over 1000).  The main source of other exhibitors was from across Asia with 112 from China, 19 from Korea and 42 from Taiwan.  Indeed with a total of 13 exhibitors the British firms represented the largest international contingent from outside Asia.

 

British Group at Plastivision 2013

The British Pavilion exhibitors were...

• Ashe Converting Equipment	• Lacerta Technology	• RecPlas Ltd
• British Plastics Federation	• Nampak Plastics Europe Ltd	• Recycle Plastic Group Ltd
• ECO Plastics Ltd	• Nextool UK Ltd	• Sam Magnet UK Ltd
• Farrel Pomini	• PREA Ltd	• Seven Seas International Ltd
		• TransXL International Ltd

"For PREA it was the first exhibition in India we took part in and it exceeded our expectations. We picked up a large number of enquiries and we are hoping that what originally was an exploratory expedition will turn out to be a very successful one. The UK Pavilion at Plastivision was well organised and supported by the BPF, which took care of the stand build making the show stress free for the Pavilion exhibitors. Also, location of the British Pavilion was exceptional and easily reached by the visitors"  Pravin S Mistry, CEO of PREA Ltd.

 

Meeting the Indian plastics VIPs

BPF WITH MR.KAILASH B MURARKA, CO-CHAIRMAN OF PLASTIVISION 2013

During the 5 day exhibition, the BPF had a chance to meet some of the most influential people in the Indian plastics industry. The BPF held several meetings with the All India Plastics Manufacturers Association (AIPMA) who are the show organisers and a highly important trade association in India.  The BPF have been working closely with AIPMA since 2009 when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the two organisations. Also, looking ahead to the 2015, the BPF met with Plastindia Foundation and visited their offices in Mumbai.  The BPF welcomed the news that Plastindia 2015 which will take place between the 5-10 February will remain at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi as opposed to moving to Gujarat which was the initial plan.  UK firms interested in exploring the Indian market are strongly encouraged to exhibit at Plastindia where the BPF will be organising the British Pavilion.  The BPF have already secured grants of up to £3,000 from UK Trade & Investment and companies looking to exhibit should contact Justyna Elliott at the BPF on [email protected] or call 0207 457 5001.  Exhibition space will be handed out on a first come first served basis and the show sells out each year so companies are encouraged to get in early if they want to participate.

More information on participation in the British Pavilion at Plastindia 2015 can be found HERE

 

UK exhibitor awarded “most creative” at Plastivision 2013

ECO PLASTICS RECEIVE THE 'MOST CREATIVE EXHIBITOR' AWARD AT THE SHOW

At the show one for the British Pavilion exhibitors, Eco Plastics (the largest PET recycler in the UK) were awarded a trophy for ‘Most Creative Exhibitor’'.  This was awarded on the strength of Eco Plastics offering a food grade recycled rPET material. The Plastivision Awards Commission felt that the use of recycled polymers in food packaging was something that would greatly benefit the Indian market and help with their desire to see carbon emissions reduce for the future. Duncan Oakes of Eco Plastics was thrilled to receive the award: “It was a great honour to be recognised for this award by Plastivision among the large amount of exhibitors present at the show. This it the first time ECO Plastics have seriously considered entering the Indian market and our first impressions are that this is likely to become a key market for some of our products for the future. Over the years ECO Plastics has held strong links with the Asian markets but the grades they typically sought to buy were the lower grade by-products generated by our process. The interest in our food grade rPET by many Indian based packaging manufacturers demonstrates the change in attitude towards carbon reduction and the desire to have a lower environmental impact on our world. We’d like to thank the BPF and also UKTI for the encouragement to look seriously at India.” The British Pavilion featured 5 recycling companies and they experienced a particularly high level of enquiries and all reported a highly successful show.

 

Best of British at Plastivision 2013

At Plastivision, the UK Pavilion exhibitors were promoted via the 'Best of British Guide' which listed all participants at the show as well as contact detail of all 450 members of the British Plastics Federation.   The guide proved to be exceptionally popular with one thousand copies being distributed over the course of the shows five days. The Guide can be downloaded HERE.

Back to basics with recycling at the Mumbai Slums

A number of the British exhibitors took an eye-opening and at times a heart breaking tour of Dharavi which is the largest slum in Mumbai and was featured heavily in the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire.  The tour's objective was to learn about the types of  industry taking place within the slum.  The group, which was made up of a number of leading UK recycling firms, were shown how plastics was recycled within the the slum and how it has earned its reputation as the 'recycling centre of India'. The slum which covers an area of less than 1 square mile has a population which fluctates between 300,000 and 1 million people and a turnover of around $650m a year. In addition to the plastics recycling industry the group were shown a selection of the estimated 5,000 businesses and 15,000 factories that exist within the district.  This included pottery-making, embroidery, a bakery, a soap factory, leather tanning, poppadom-making and many more. Most of these things are created in very simple way and in very small spaces.

The Dharavi slum in Mumbai

Recycling, which takes place in the slum on a massive scale plays an important role in helping India to achieve a recycling rate of 47%, much higher than most other countries.  It was evident to the group how nothing is wasted and that all material entering the slum was carefully checked and sorted with the plastics being washed, shredded, extruded and regranulated before it was sold on as raw material. During the tour one of the UK exhibitors, Steven Price from Lacerta Technology, which manufactures material testing equipment, picked up a sample of a material being recycled to test on their identiPol QA2. He put the sample into a test and was able to identify a HDPE material. To support the community of the slums, the company which runs the tours reinvests 85% of the income generated back into the area to support charitable intiatives which include a school that the group were taken to.

Plastics Industry in India

It is predicted that by 2025 India will be the world’s fifth largest consumer market and globally the third largest consumer of plastics. With a population of over 1.2 billion, GDP growth of 7.5% in 2012 (Source: The World Bank), India promises a world of opportunities for UK exporters who can take advantage of this huge market.

The Indian plastics industry is growing at a rate of 13-15% p.a. in a number of areas such as agriculture, packaging, electronics, telecom, healthcare, infrastructure, transport and consumer goods according to Plastindia Foundation, the Indian plastics industry body. According to the same source consumption of plastics in India will reach 15 million tonnes by 2015.

Some areas of the market are struggling however, especially in the Indian automotive market which saw a 9.59% decline in car sales in 2013.  This is the first time Indian car sales have decreased in 11 years.

The packaging sector in India alone consumes 3.5 million tonnes of polymers and is likely to increase to 9 million tonnes by 2020. India's workforce is over 460 million people and out of these there are more than 350 million people in the middle class, making India’s consumer market highly desirable to manufacturers and exporters.  In total there are around 30,000 companies in the plastics sector in India according to Applied Market Information (AMI).

The demand for plastics is growing, and it currently is 8kg per head compared to 5kg in 2005, this compares to the European demand currently at 75kg and the world’s average of 28kg according to AMI data. According to Plastindia Foundation consumption of polymer in India has historically been trebling every decade.





At the current time there are around 113,000 plastics processing machines in India (64% injection moulding, 28% extrusion and 8% blow moulding) which is set to increase to 150,000 by 2020 according to the Plastindia Foundation.

 

UK Trade & Investment support to British exhibitors

UK Trade & Investment have recently increased the amount of funding available to UK firms wishing to exhibit at foreign trade shows.  For Plastivision ten British Firms were able to access grants of upto £3,000 which entirely covered the cost of the stands. UKT&I have also confirmed the funding allocation for upcoming shows with UK Pavilions at Chinaplas in Shanghai, China (23 - 26 April 2014); at Plastimagen in Mexico City (18 - 21 November 2014), and at Plastindia in New Delhi (5-10 February 2015). For each fair UKT&I will be offering grants of up to £3,000 to participate. Companies wanting to find out more should contact Justyna Elliott at the BPF [email protected] or call 0207 457 5001. Please Note: The rules of grant allocation have been also changed to support more experienced exporters and companies can now apply for up to twelve grants since 1st April 2009.