In the petrochemical industry, a milestone marking the beginning of the new year was Interplastica, an international plastics and rubber trade fair. Taking place in January at Moscow’s Expocentre, the event celebrated its 20th anniversary and attracted more than 820 companies fr om 35 countries worldwide, including the US, Germany, Italy, Austria, France, China, and Iran. The Russian polymers sector is going through an important stage of evolution: the year 2016, marked by a drive towards import substitution, saw a lot of producers enhance their market positions and move on to new ambitious targets of international expansion, which has become the key theme at Interplastica.
The event was held in three exhibition halls at Expocentre, which were divided into two areas: Raw Materials, represented mostly by companies producing polymers, auxiliaries, additives, and colourants, and Machinery and Equipment to showcase equipment for processing companies. Interplastica was timed to coincide with Upakovka, a trade fair which explored ways of using polymers in packaging, one of the largest consumer segments.
SIBUR’s exhibition stand was located at the centre of the first hall, with perfect visibility from almost any part of Expocentre. It was a two-floor structure that used the ground floor as an interactive platform for presentations (including those involving 3D models) and the top floor as a venue for negotiations, wh ere SIBUR held more than 100 meetings with its partners. “Our talks have been quite robust. We will be able to fully appreciate the outcomes later, when all the agreements are put into practice for us to benchmark them against our expectations,” said Mikhail Grigoriev, Purchasing Manager, CIS, at Sealed Air Corporation, one of the world’s leaders in protective and presentation packaging solutions. According to Pavel Lyakhovich, member of the Management Board and Managing Director of SIBUR, the event, with its discussions and negotiations, is an additional catalyst for SIBUR to continue expanding its product range: “Interplastica gives a great boost for SIBUR and the industry alike. We did a conscious effort to make our Interplastica exhibition stand a state of the art venue that is visible from just about anywhere at Expocentre: it helps us reinforce our perception as a market leader.”
SIBUR actively used its stand throughout the three days of the event. Especially exciting for the visitors was SIBUR’s presentation of the ZapSibNeftekhim project and its future products. “We liked the presentation a lot as a source of some real data on how the plant is being built. I am sure we will be partnering with them,” one of the clients commented on ZapSibNeftekhim. SIBUR’s stand was also a place for discussing ways to grow the company’s product range in order to focus on some of the most sought-after product categories such as polyethylene and polypropylene. “At Interplastica 2017, we first showcased our new Sibex brand, which provides our customers with the best solutions in packaging, nonwoven fabric products, and plastic pipes,” said Sergey Komyshan, SIBUR’s Management Board member and Executive Director.
All the activities that SIBUR prepared for Interplastica (in addition to presentations, those included events hosted by external experts) were available both on the site and through online broadcasting, which helped expand their audiences even further. For example, Nielsen, one of the world’s leaders in market data and research, prepared a dedicated presentation for Interplastica. Svetlana Bobrova, Nielsen’s Strategic Partnership Leader, provided an overview of Russia’s current economy, focusing on the trends and changes in consumer preferences seen in the retail market. Ultimately, those lead to changes in the packaging market, one of the core ones for SIBUR’s consumers.
Another special feature introduced at Interplastica 2017 was a greater focus on the Industry 4.0 technologies, including the expansion of additive manufacturing. The traditional technologies used in plastics, such as moulding and extrusion, are now complemented with 3D printing as a new tool. Interplastica saw the presentation of a new project: 3D fab+print Russia, a special show for additive manufacturing and 3D printing. It demonstrated that today, 3D printers in Russia are evolving from mere toys or test samples to full-fledged manufacturing units that the market needs.
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