Gartex Texprocess India 2021 concludes on a high note

The platform brought together 145 exhibitors

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Gartex
Visitors at Gartex Texprocess India 2021. Photo Messe Frankfurt

Setting the industry up for a post-pandemic future, Gartex Texprocess India concluded on a fruitful note underlining the dynamic domestic marketplace and the opportunities it offers, its organizer Messe Frankfurt Trade Fairs India said. Through five focused segments and the co-located Screen Print India and Denim Show, the platform brought together 145 exhibitors with over 300 brands and more than 800 products on display.

Gartex Texprocess India, the B2B exhibition on garmenting and textile machinery, fabric accessories, and allied industries returned to Delhi with its first-ever post-pandemic edition this December. The combined showcase of textiles and garment machineries, digital and screen-printing technologies, and denim innovations and trends attracted 10,158 business visitors over its three-day course.  

Re-affirming the potential of the Indian market in the post-pandemic scenario, Adhish Aggarwal, business development manager, Insight Print Communications said, “We have had many of our existing customers upgrading to the new TS55 machines and switching to TS100 machines from their traditional Chinese machines. These 2 boxes have certainly been a game-changer. There is a huge potential in the Indian market, with the Government also setting up textile hubs and sanctioning grants for the same.” 

The company showcased the new high-speed sublimation printer Mimaki TS55-1800 and an entry-level sublimation printer TS100-1600 by Mimaki, a renowned Japanese brand in textile printing industry.

First-time exhibitor Felix Schoeller India also reported to have a good business response. Pranav Vaswani, director, shared, “We participated in the Gartex Texprocess India 2021 to promote our sublimation paper which is sold out as an S-RACE brand. This is our first time participating in Gartex and we had a pretty good response in these three days. It was great to find a lot of good quality conscious customers at this exhibition and has been a very interesting experience for us as we came across a lot of new customers, who we could introduce our products to. I think it is going to give us good business traction over the next one and a half years because a lot of people have become aware of our products, and we are very happy overall.” 

Bharath Subramaniam, managing director, Mehala Machines India, also shared his experience as an exhibitor at Gartex Texprocess India 2021, “This year we had displayed our latest products in technical textile fabrics for protective wear, performance wear, workwear, and bags. The platform proved to be really beneficial for us, we got really good prospects and we are happy to see customers from different parts of India converging at the exhibition. Overall, the response has been excellent.” He further shared that there is a huge scope for automation and that advanced technology in garment manufacturing will become the centerpiece leading to increased productivity.

Targeting the future of fashion through advancements in garment machinery, innovative fabrics, embroideries and trims, denim collections, as well as screen-printing technologies and its rising applications, the platform brought the textile value chain together through its dedicated product zones of Embroidery zone, Digitex show, Fabrics & Trims show. The specialty areas made product sourcing easy for its business visitors.  

Screen Printing segment remains strong for textile printing industry

Screen printing plays a major role in today’s fashion industry and holds a prominent position among brands for high volume production. With technological developments in this space, screen printing has also made the fashion business more economical than ever. Showcasing advancements in this space with their entirely new line of ultrasoft binders, Moulik Ranka, director, Zydex Industries said, “It has been very refreshing to see and connect with old faces again after the last two troublesome years. This year we were very excited to launch an entirely new line of ultrasoft binders that allow expanding the pigment printing space to replace 30-40% of reactive type designs resulting in significant savings in energy as well as water. The show has been really good with excellent footfall and we are extremely pleased to have participated this year.”

Distributors of USA-based company Stahls also reported a remarkable response from Indian buyers. Harish Dharamsinh, marketing executive, Skyscreen International explained, “We are the distributors of heat transfer films, vinyl, and heat press machines of Stahls for the Asia region. We also are the distributor of GCC cutting plotters and selling DTF printing machines along with ink, matte films, among others. Screen Print India has been remarkable in the post-pandemic scenario and provided us with a great response from the buyers.”

Denim Show: a major attraction at Gartex Texprocess India

One of the central attractions at the show, the Denim Zone with its unique art installation, a dedicated trend area, and blended product showcases made waves among the buyers. The Denim show witnessed remarkable participation from 25 of India’s prominent Denim mills paving way for potential partnerships. 

Asia’s largest denim producer, Jindal Worldwide reported to have received a great footfall of international buyers from the show. Amit Jindal, managing director shared, “We have been getting great responses from the show year after year. This time we are surprised to see a lot of customers coming from outside of India like Peru, South America, Columbia, Bangladesh, Egypt, and Turkey. So we really see that this show is going international and it is giving us a great business response.”

Aamir Akhtar, CEO, Arvind said, “Unfortunately, the last two years we had to sort of take a brief break. Returning after two years, the show has been really amazing this time. The people here, the mood here, the sentiment here, the quality of buyers here; it is really very encouraging. It is amazing to see the general sentiment to be so positive and it is almost like setting a new direction for the industry.”

With business activity soaring and booking confirmations for the next edition starting during the show itself, Gartex Texprocess India’s Mumbai edition will be a must-watch event for the textile, garment machinery, and fashion industries to source new products and ideas, Messe Frankfurt Trade Fairs India said. Dates of the 2022 Mumbai edition will be announced in the coming months. 

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.

– Naresh Khanna

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