The Middle East’s largest packaging and printing trade fairs, Gulf Pack and Gulf Print, came to a successful conclusion today with positive feedback from exhibitors and visitors Drawing near 8,000 top quality visitors from 75 countries, exhibitors notched up transactions in excess of $9 million, with plenty more orders in the pipeline as a consequence of participation. Testament to the success of the event is an immediate confirmation from the organisers, F&E, of the dates for next year, from the 10th to the 13th of December 2006.
The shows proudly presented over 350 exhibitors from 43 countries, including the largest names in the business such as Heidelberg, HP, Xerox and Crown. Amongst the exhibitors who revealed sales figures, first time exhibitors from Greece, MJ Maillis Group, announced sales of packaging equipment to the value of US$4m to an Iranian customer. Ali Al Hashemi Trading, launched a printing press machine for the first time in the Middle East, they achieved more than US$1m worth of sales in the first two days. Info Graphics, sold 4 Ryobi machines, one to United Printers in Saudi Arabia and 2 machines to Al Warakiah. Their sales were worth $1.5m with double that in potential sales to be confirmed after the conclusion of the trade fair.
Agfa’s plate production machine, received huge amount of interest in its chemical free technology. The company sold two machines to Iran, and has established potential contacts from KSA, UAE, Pakistan, and Iran. Heidelberg sold a Prosetter (P102) to UAE’s Recorder Printing Press on the 2nd day of the show. HP sold 22 Designjet 4500 to companies around the Middle East, worth a value of $170,000 as well as potential contracts worth $250, 000. Digitage, the agent of Kodak-Creo equipment in the Gulf region sold three CTP’s worth $700,000 to two Iranian companies and a UAE company. .
Creating visitor satisfaction was a major goal for the Gulf Pack and Gulf Print shows. This was done through a carefully planned series of workshops and seminars run by a variety of participants including Xerox, Creo and Tetra Pack. One of the most important seminars that took place was the announcement of the results of the first ever packaging survey in the Middle East covering consumer packaging categories, trends and opportunities. The research was conducted by IMES Consulting, a leading firm of international consultants, made possible through the support of the event organizers, Fairs & Exhibitions Ltd, and iMPZ, part of Tecom.
“Another major attraction this year was the "Ask the User Forum", which gave the opportunity for potential customers to obtain first hand information on how the latest CTP technology performs directly from end users who have bought CTP presses from Heidelberg, Presstek, Creo and AGFA who were present at the show.” Stated Lina Alousta, Project Manager of Gulf Print. “This was a platform that brought together manufacturers, CTP end users, and visitors from all aspects of print technology to put forward questions, exchange ideas, views and information.”
Gulf Pack Gulf Print also witnessed the second Awards for Tertiary Students. Universtities from the UAE participated with around 35 entries in five categories of Graphic Design and Packaging Design. “These awards were well received by both industry and academics as they reflected the curriculum of the UAE,” explained Sharla Hancock, Project Manager of Gulf Pack. “The Awards were launched for the first time last year in an effort to bring industry and education closer together, and we managed to achieve that. We now have requests to involve more exhibitors.”
