Plexconcil’s annual event Plexconnect in Mumbai from June 7

The Plastics Export Promotion Council (Plexconcil), established by the Ministry of Commerce, will conduct PlexConnect 2024 exhibition during June 7-9 in Mumbai with total focus on exports, said Plexconcil Executive Director Sribash Dasmohapatra.

• Also read: Plastic industry using multi-pronged strategy targeting $25 billion exports: Plexconcil

“We are now organising the exhibition for which we have invited more than 800 buyers from more than 70-plus countries. This will be an exposure for small and medium enterprises in India and also showcase India’s pride in plastic manufacturing,” he told businessline in an online interaction. 

At least 80 Indian embassies and high commissions are helping Plexconcil with the event and so far over 600 buyers from 59 countries have registered to take part in it, he said.

It will be for the first time that so many buyers will come under one roof in the plastic sector. Plexconcil expects about 800 buyers from 80-plus countries to take part in the event. “For the first time, we will have technical seminars and an innovations pavilion in manufacturing processes, technical techniques used and all this,” said the Plexconcil executive director..

For the first time, Walmart’s global sourcing team will be taking part as also another US supply chain firm Target. A team from Ikea is also expected and all the firms will be directly talking to them, said Dasmohapatra. 

Besides the US, participants from Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, France, Hong Kong, Kenya, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Tanzania, UK and UAE among others have registered for the event. 

 Plexconcil is helping in arranging meetings between manufacturers and buyers during the event. “There will be business-to-business meetings and we are lining them up. There will be a reverse buyer-seller meet. We are looking at the interest of buyers and what they import globally. Accordingly, if someone is dealing with a particular product, we are arranging a meeting with exhibitors of those products,” he said. 

In the PlexConnect event last year, 4,200 meetings were held with 351 buyers from 51 countries taking part. “We had an onsite sale of over $5.1 million, besides $16.3 million business orders getting accumulated in the pipeline. Taking the success of last year into account, we are thinking to probably increase the size of the exhibition this year and also invite double the number of buyers,” the Plexconcil executive director said.

There will be technical conferences at Plexconnect, besides an export awareness campaign. Sustainability and recycling will be the other major topics at the meet. Some foreign experts are expected to take part in PlexConnect. 

In particular, at least 25 buyers from Russia are expected to come for the event to source their needs. On the export potential of plastic, Dasmohapatra said India’s annual plastics export was $12 billion making up 1.2 per cent of the global export basket. “So, there is a huge potential for exports to grow,” Dasmohapatra said.

COMMENT NOW