Monday 20 February, 2012

Why Indian offset printers are moving to packaging

Diversification from one business to other is something all businesses do once or twice in their lifetime. Printing is an ancient industry and its most popular and recent form lithography, has grown to fully automatic, sensor controlled, giant printing presses.

In the course of this growth, it has seen many technologies -- some that it embraced and others it threw out. In this time the industry evolved to a certain level of standardisation to replace the less technical or craft-like interventions formerly needed to control its process, and this has perhaps made the industry stable to a large extent. As a rule we know that where there is a movement, there is a growth. Printing has seen great movement and change in the past 500 years but in the developed economies it is now threatened by sudden stagnation.

I meet many printers who have moved or are in the process of moving their focus from printing to packaging. Reasons? One is technological stagnancy apart from digital inkjet and new media. In offset there is no major research and development going on and in the past ten years no major revolutionary changes have been incorporated in the process – the improvements in automation are thus far incremental. This and excess capacity in the developed economies, has led to the death of many printing press manufacturers and printers as well. Another reason for the diversification to packaging at least in India, is that packaging is growing at a faster pace than commercial printing and the machinery needed is similar with a few mechanical changes in the post press area from binding to converting. Thus you can start a packaging unit simultaneously while running a commercial printing plant!!

Rashmi Bhate edit3@ippgroup.in

Wednesday 15 February, 2012

Tracking polymer prices in 2012

First rise after initial dip in January

The prices of polymers, the key input for the flexible packaging industry, have increased possibly because Reliance, the biggest Indian polymer manufacturer, has shut down three of its production units for annual maintenance in the end of January 2012. In the end of December 2011, Haldia Petrochemicals also closed down some of its units for maintenance. Domestic polymer manufacturers increased the prices of polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) by Rs 3,000 a tonne and Rs 1,000 a tonne, respectively with effect from 9 February 2012.

This is the first rise in polymer prices in the current calendar year although in January 2012, Indian polymer manufacturers twice reduced the price of PVC to match the international price of PVC. In January, the basic variety of PVC was priced at Rs 58,500 a tonne in the domestic market, which was higher than the imported variety of PVC. Thereafter, Indian manufacturers reduced the price of PVC by Rs 3,500 a tonne.

The main reason for raising the prices of PP and PE is capacity reduction not a rise in input prices or a spurt in demand in the domestic market. Polyethylene (PE) and its variants, high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), are extensively used in manufacturing different types of packaging products, such as woven sacks, multi-layer and mono-layer carry bags, tarpaulin, and small, medium and bulk containers for packaging edible oil and processed food, lubricants, detergents, chemicals, pesticides, houseware amongst other products. Polypropylene (PP) and its variant, biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) are widely used in flexible packaging of processed food, pharmaceutical, FMCG and cosmetics and personal care. Therefore, the rise in prices of polyethylene and polypropylene may increase the packaging cost of a variety of consumer products, which in turn may be passed on to end-users.

Apart from the domestic market, the prices of polymer, especially PE, have also increased in the international market in February 2012 by US$ 100 to US$ 120 per tonne to $1400-$1420 per tonne. As per industry experts, this is the outcome of high polymer demand in China, Taiwan and Japan after the Chinese New Year. As a result, Indian imports of polymer also became dearer. Since prices of polymer are increasing and domestic demand is not rising, manufacturers are offering price protection schemes to woo customers. In price protection schemes, manufacturers compensate the customers if the company further reduces prices within that week or month.

Asia Pacific growth mantras — Team India at drupa


Slightly less than 30Indian exhibitors are gearing up to be part of an unprecedented Asia Pacificpresence at drupa. China itself is the biggest exhibitor with more than 11,400square metres of exhibition space and 239 exhibitors! In addition there are 7exhibitors from Hong Kong and 30 from Taiwan. Even the manufacturing powerhouseof Japan comes behind China also we suspect that much of the space and many ofthe exhibitors listed under the United Kingdom are perhaps Japanese companieswith a European base in that country.

Taiwan has the samenumber of exhibitors (thirty) as India and South Korea but occupies more spaceat 2,168 square metres. India and Korea both occupy approximately the sameamount of space of around 1,400 square metres although the Indian exhibitorsspace is marginally higher. Altogether there are eleven Asia Pacific exhibitorsincluding Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia,Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

Although the Indianprint equipment exports have also suffered from the slowdown of the industry inNorth America and Europe, the exhibitors at drupa are optimistic. The feelingis that the slowdown has mostly affected the bigger western manufacturers, anda country like India with its burgeoning economy and huge demand for educationand print can, as a whole, step up its game. As the the Indian equipmentcompanies absorb new automation components and technologies, their competitiveengineering design and manufacturing are being recognised the world over andthey are focusing on the more vibrant markets of Asia, Africa and LatinAmerica.

There is an overallmaturity amongst the manufacturers all of whom are well established companiesand many have been at several drupas before this one. An added feature at drupaon 9th May 2012, is IppStar’s presentation of its research and trendforecasts of the Indian print industry. Indian Printer and Publisher and PackagingSouth Asia magazines and IppStar would be present at Hall 9 Stand—A 39along with our Independent Media Alliance partners from Europe, Korea andAustralia.


Indian exhibitors atdrupa 2012

LIST OF THE INDIAN EXHIBITORS AT drupa 2012(in alphabetical order)
Sl. No.
Name of the company
From
Hall & Stand No.

1
ACME Machinery
Mumbai
12 E40

2
APL Machinery
Faridabad
12 B35

3
Chemline India
New Delhi
13 D91

4
Convertech Equipment
New Delhi
12 C39

5
Cosmo Films
Aurangabad, Maharashtra
03 F16

6
DB Engineering
New Delhi
12 E44

7
Diehard Dies
Guntur, Andhra Pradesh
10 B70

8
Ecoaxis Systems
Pune
16 A09

9
Expert Industries
Anekal Taluk, Bangalore
03 C52

10
Garware Polyester
Waluj, Aurangabad
07.1 E25

11
Grafitek International
New Delhi
15 B22

12
Holostik India
Noida, UP
06 D73

13
Indian Printer and Publisher, Packaging South Asia, and IppStar
New Delhi
09 A39

14
Kohli Industries
Thane
03 F88

15
Lineomatic Graphic Industries
Ahmedabad
11 B41

16
Manugraph India
Mumbai
06 E80-1 & 06 E80-2

17
Metamation Software
Chennai
07A E12

18
Mona Equipments
Gautam Budh Nagar, UP
06 D64

19
NBG Printographic Machinery
New Delhi
03 D35

20
Patel Enterprises
Mumbai
15 B14

21
Prakash Webtech
Faridabad, Haryana
15 D55

22
Print-O-Graph Machinery Industries
Navi Mumbai
03 F31

23
Radix Software Services
Ahmedabad
08B C11

24
Ronald Weboffset
Faridabad
15 A08

25
Shilp Gravures
Gandhinagar
05 B40

26
Shree Refrigerations
Karad
03 E91

27
The Printers House
New Delhi
16 C47-1

28
UFlex
Noida, UP
06 A38

29
Zenith Rubber
New Delhi
06 E75


- Avinandan Mukherjee