FICCI organises free webinar on “Export of Indian Publishing Content & Services”
FICCI is organizing a free GBO webinar on “Export of Indian Publishing Content & Services” (Indian stories going overseas) as part of the Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF) Special Edition on 14 October 2020 at 11:45 hours IST. The list of speakers at the event includes Ratnesh Jha, chief executive officer – India and South East Asia, Burlington Group; Claudia Kaiser, vice president, Frankfurt Book Fair; Preeti Vyas, chief executive officer, Amar Chitra Katha; Vineet Bajpai, author; Ravi Deecee, chief executive officer, DC books; Mudit Mohini, director, Vishv Books; and Neeraj Jain, managing director, Scholastic India. Registrations for the event are free of cost and can be done here.
FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) has always considered books as a valuable media for the development and promotion of human values. Books help in documentation of new ideas, preservation and knowledge communication and the holistic development of an individual. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a disastrous effect on the book publishing industry in India. FICCI aims to give a new status and identity to the Indian publishing industry through this webinar.
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
