24th May, 2017 - Day 2 at Kielce, Poland. Kielce is around 180 km from Warsaw. The city is busy all year organizing expos at the Targi Kielce which is the main exhibition center of the city. This year, Machinecraft decided to exhibit at Plastpol 2017 since the company has been getting a lot of inquiries from the CEE (Central and East European) region.

Economic Facts about Poland v/s India

Population - 38 Million v/s 1.3 Billion
Population Growth - 0.038% v/s 1.33%
GDP - 500 Billion USD v/s 2 Trillion USD
GDP per capita - 12,000 USD v/s 1500 USD per person per year
GDP growth - +3.9% v/s +7.5%

Plastpol 2017

Being the first time at Plastpol, the company decided to get a small booth of 12 sq.m

Hall A - Stall no. 137

We were fortunate to discuss the Plastics industry in Poland and in India with many Polish Thermoformers. Although the footfall was small, we did get queries from quite a few companies especially for our INLINE Series - Form Cut Stack Machine for Food Packaging and PF1 Series - Thick Sheet Forming Machine for Automotive, Sanitary, Infrastructure, Luggage Industry.

Machinecraft was one of the few companies from India participating at the show. The company promoted the Make in India and Manufacturing in India campaign.

Impression of Plaspol 2017

Thermoforming Market in Poland v/s India

Interesting fact about the thin sheet thermoforming industry in Poland- most of the big companies in Poland such as Covaris, Greiner Packaging, etc. are multi-national and non-polish. Once a small company reaches a certain output per month (approx. 10 Million Euros Top Line), the bigger company buys them out. This is an issue for Poland according to a Polish Thermoformer since none of the big companies are Polish.

Big companies do 7000 Tons/month of food packaging applications. The entire Indian market is dwarf-like when it comes to the Polish market for Food Packaging. Such is the state of Retail in India. But, we see the market picking up and developing in the next few years. The potential in the Indian market is 10 fold when compared to the Polish market mainly because of the high possibility of internal consumption.

Another interesting fact by a Polish Thermoformer was that Poland is one of the cheapest countries in the EU when it comes to workers - the average mechanic cost in Poland is about 1700 Euros/mo. Comparing this with India, the average cost of a mechanic at a factory would be around 400 Euros/mo. About 4x cheaper. The abundance of manpower in India is the key to the growth of the Indian economy making it easier for Indian companies to start with new businesses quickly.

Conclusion

The Indian economy must learn from developed economies like Poland and drive retail and overall consumer consumption by offering more developed products especially using Plastics and Plastics Processing technologies. People in the region can only drive the engine by thinking and develop new applications that reduce waste and optimize the output in the region.

Plastpol was a good show for the company, exposing the power of Indian manufacturing and service to the CEE and Visegrad region through Poland. We are fortunate to be one of the few companies from India with a global presence.

For more information you can mail us on rushabh@machinecraft.org to know about the thermoforming market know-how in India and Europe.