At the start of 2016, Fujikura Rubber a leading manufacturer of offset printing blankets for over fifty years has enhanced its presence in the Indian and South Asian markets with the announcement of an equal jointventure with Print Sales Company of Kolkata. The Indian offset printing market is a huge consumer of rubber blankets. With the market still growing, unlike most developed markets, it has become one of the attractive markets for leading international suppliers.
In an event held in Kolkata on 9 January 2016, Fujikura Rubber announced its official association with Print Sales Company of Kolkata to sell and distribute its range of blankets all over the country.
With the top management of Fujikura Rubber present, Rajendra and Rishi Vidhawan of Print Sales Company announced the tie-up to be known as Fujikura Graphics India. Kenji Morita, managing director and vice president of the sales division, Hisaki Sugimoto, general manager, printing materials sales department and Tsuyoshi Otani, assistant manager, overseas section, printing materials sales department of Fujikura Rubber were present in Kolkata to publicly commemorate the occasion and to speak with customers.
Rajendra Vidhawan, himself an industry veteran, said his association with Fujikura blankets goes back a long time, “In 1986, on a specific request from the Anand Bazar Patrika newspaper group, I went to the Fujikura factory in Japan to collect a supply of blankets. Our friendship has blossomed since then. It gives me great pleasure now to take this relationship further and move ahead with our plans to be a pan-India supplier of Fujikura blankets.”
Fujikura Rubber has recently acquired the blanket division of Sumitomo which should hold them in good stead in targeting the packaging market, said Tsuyoshi Otani. “The Indian print market is an extremely important market for us at the moment. Our association with Print Sales goes back a long way and we thought this would be the ideal time to come and grow with India because in Japan the market is already flat with little scope for further growth at the moment. We have the full range of blankets for the entire offset market and with our recent association with Sumitomo, we hope to do well in the packaging market as well.”
Fujikura’s managing director Kenji Morita said that the company’s directors think that the Indian market is a very important market at the moment. “We have sister concerns in many countries but this is the first time when Fujikura has come up with a joint-venture with another company in Asia. Not only shall we be supplying to the Indian market, but we also have plans to make Kolkata a hub and reach out to neighbouring countries and regions such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Middle-East and other parts of South Asia. However, we plan to expand as we grow. It is a step-by-step approach that we have in mind.”
Print Sales Grouphas already set up a state-of-the-art blanket barring unitin Kolkata in associationwith Fujikura. According toVidhawan,the need for this kind of a facilitywasfeltfor a long time in theEastern region ofIndia and with such a facility coming up, itwould help in reducing a lot oftime asthis work used to be outsourced to companiesin other parts ofIndia
The market has always needed a proper consumables supplier and Fujikura’s greatest strength is its quality feels Rishi Vidhawan. “There shall certainly be a lot of challenges for us ahead, but we do believe we have the right product for the market at the moment. Web offset and packaging are the two specific areas where we want to do well, as we already have a good customer base with the newspapers. The barring facility will also add to the efficiency and the convenience of the printers here. From here, sky is the limit for us to grow together with Fujikura,” Vidhawan said.
