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

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 9^th 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