Frankly, the IppGroup consisting of IPP Catalog Publications Pvt Ltd and Ipp Services, Training and Research Pvt Ltd (IppStar) is not very large. One company publishes two monthly magazines – the 40-year-old Indian Printer and Publisher and the 12-year-old Packaging South Asia. The second company has continuously tried to lend substance to our optimism over the years for the fast technological change in the print, packaging and publishing industry with ethical technical and project consulting, real primary research in these domains, training and promotion, and compliance of color and environmental standards.
For us the task since 1979 has not only been to build our company but to help build an industry’s coherence – in terms of its ethics and standards and most of all in its selfbelief and self-respect. Unless we believed in ourselves and called on our industry colleagues to maintain standards of quality and governance (including payment of taxes), we could hardly expect others to respect us or to help us (which printers have done – in our times of need). Being small has never hampered our ability to help others, to be profitable or to pay taxes.
As the festival season hopefully energizes the industry with print demand, it seems that the print industries, although fragmented in many segments, are still growing. IppStar’s research shows a steady increase in demand for book printing (albeit with some consolidation toward bigger suppliers) and a very strong demand increase in consumer product packaging (albeit with tight margins). The industry will require consolidation – perhaps a task that will come with and because of generational change.
While many events are on the horizon, our group is focussed on the next Labelexpo India, which takes place from 22 to 25 November in our proverbial backyard, the Expo Centre in Greater Noida. We are expecting this to be an excellent show for the label industry with interesting innovations from the major global suppliers as well as an precedented phalanx of Indian label press suppliers. These developments will be extensively previewed on the www.packagingsouthasia.com website and in the November issue of Packaging South Asia as well as its two newsletters each week.
THE PRINTPACK INDIA SHOW DAILY
At the same time we are gearing up for the biggest Indian print and packaging trade show – Printpack India 2019 that takes place from 1 to 6 February at the Expo Centre in Greater Noida – again in our proverbial backyard. Most importantly, for this exciting show we will be producing THE PRINTPACK INDIA SHOW DAILY on all the six days of the show. With 19,800 square meters of net show space already sold, the net show space is expected to reach 23,000 square meters – an increase of close to 40% over the hugely successful show in 2017. Although the organizers expect attendance of close to 100,000, we would more modestly suggest that an attendance of close to 70,000 is the likely minimum.
The show is extremely promising with an increasing number of global equipment, consumable and software manufacturers amongst the nearly 400 exhibitors (387 as we go to press) who have already committed to the show. We expect our digital email previews entitled the THE PRINTPACK INDIA SHOW DAILY preceding the event to become a valuable accessory to the even more impactful print daily to be distributed in large numbers on all the six days of the show. We invite support to both the digital version of the THE PRINTPACK INDIA SHOW DAILY for those looking forward to attracting informed interest from the widest variety of visitors ever to the most comprehensive Indian print show thus far. IPAMA, the organizers of the show, are hosting delegations from Nigeria, Egypt, Palestine, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka with special discounts and promotions. We expect that there will be some visitors from Pakistan as well. We solicit strong support from IPAMA members and from all exhibitors for THE PRINTPACK INDIA SHOW DAILY. For more information and to take this forward, please contact ads1@ippgroup.in.