The Hindu Business Line : Bangalore Plastasia `will turn focus on South'

While Delhi and Mumbai have their own trade fair versions for this industry, Plastasia will make Bangalore its hub and centre on the southern industries once in three years.

Bangalore , Feb. 4

THE rather dormant southern region will be the focus of the plastic manufacturing and processing industry when the GAIL-Plastasia 2004 expo comes to Bangalore later this month.

This is the first major plastics industry fair to be held in the South and will help the upstream industries to explore a potential arena, according to its organisers.

While Delhi and Mumbai have their own trade fair versions for this industry, Plastasia will make Bangalore its hub and centre on the southern industries once in three years, said Mr Cyril Periera, Managing Director, of Triune Exhibitors.

Public sector player GAIL India, one of the three national raw material producers for the plastic industry, is the co-host of the event, slated for February 26-29 at Palace Grounds here.

The domestic demand, largely driven by the North, currently hovers at 1.1 million tonnes out of the total domestic polymer production of 1.4 million tonnes, said Mr A.K. Nandy Roy, GAIL India's Bangalore Zonal General Manager, and Mr Vijay Chhokar, Manager (Marketing & In charge, Petrochemicals).

With the surplus situation expected to continue for another couple of years, export prices ruling high at $850 a tonne and the domestic demand set to grow 11-12 per cent annually in the coming years, "We will need much more material by 2008-10," they said.

GAIL, the smallest of the three players in the segment with a market share of 18 per cent, is also ramping up capacities in the near term. Polymer accounts for some 12 per cent of its annual turnover.

Blow moulded containers, pouches, pipes, tarpaulin, woven sacks, roto-moulded water tanks form some of the organised processor industries who are going in for higher volumes, exports and modernisation of production.

India is the third largest user of plastics, after the US and China, but in terms of per capita consumption which hovers at 3.8 kg a year, it is still way behind the world average of 19 kg and China's 15 kg.

If the first million tonnes of domestic consumption came in 30 years, the second million took just five years.

"Today the consumption has touched 2.5 million tonnes and is expected to touch 11 million by 2007," the organisers said.

The good news for polymer producing majors - Reliance and IPCL, Haldia and GAIL - is that the Indian polymer scene is expected to grow to 12 million tonnes by 2010 compared to about 30 million of China.

At that rate, industry expects that the country would need an additional 13,300 injection mould machines, 3,600 blow moulding machines, 10,200 extrusion lines and 300 allied machines.

Fragmented and mainly in the small-scale sector, the plastics industry, the organisers said citing the Organisations of Plastics Processors (OOP) of India, needs to rationalise its cost of production, processes, alternative production methods, new products and machinery.

Mr Periera said GAIL-Plastasia will have participants from Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, the US, Germany and Taiwan.

The trade fair will bring together resin makers, processors, processing aid manufacturers, machinery makers, trainers and consultants from the dominant northern States of Delhi, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra as well as Karnataka and Chennai.

The other partners in the expo cum conference are the Central Institute of Plastics Engineering & Technology (CIPET) and the Karnataka State Small Scale Plastic Manufacturers Association and All-India Flat Tape Manufacturers' Association.

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