Articles

The 14th International Packaging Exhibition in Istanbul ”AMBALAJ 2008“

07 November, 2008

The event took place on October, 23-26, 2008.
Our colleague Margarita Korneva, the Director of Information Center, attended the Exhibition with the delegation of Russian packagers. The program of the visit organized by the Trade Represantation of the Turkish Embassy in Moscow, the Union of Exporters of Istanbul and the Association of the Packaging Manufacturers of Turkey under support of the Russian Trade-Industrial Chamber and National Packaging Confederation of Russia, envisaged the business talks with the companies working at the Turkish Packaging market, and also the participation at the work of exhibition.

30 representatives of the industrial units-consumers and manufactures of packaging from the packaging, food and cosmetic branches of industry, including the Executive Director of the National Packaging Confederation of Russia, the Chairman of the sub-committee of the Industry-Trade Chamber of Russian Federation,  Mr A. Boiko, formed the Russian group.

The first working day of the Russian group was in the Istanbul Complex of  International Trade. About 60 enterprises and companies took part in bilateral talks with Turkish side, what permitted to get the wide range of possible cooperation of Russian and Turkish industry representatives, to deepen their knowledge about the modern pakaging industry of Turkey. During the meetings both issues of manufacturing and the application of various packaging materials, products and equipment were discussed.

October, 23 was the opening day of the Exhibition. The Exhibition organizers —exhibition company TUYAP and packaging associations of Turkey among which the outmost place is occupied by the Association of Pakaging Manufacturers of Turkey (ASD). The Exhibition of packaging that is annualy held in the biggest city of Turkey is among ten top industrial branch exhibitions in the world and is the biggest annual packaging exhibition in Europe.

The Exhibition has been held for 14 years and presents the widest selection of goods concerning packaging., from the advanced packaging equipment to the smallest packaging items and various materials. If, at its opening in 1994 the Exhibition occupied  around 1,000 sq.m. area  with participation of 30 companies, in 2008 the number of participants increased up to 500,  trade marks to 1,300 and the area reached 60,000 sq.m.. The number of visitors was more than 40,000.

For the Russian visitors the Exhibition was interesting because it gave the full account on the packaging industry of Turkey — the country which is one of the most active business partners to the South of Russia, and also presents the offers in the packaging field practically from the whole world - England, France, Germany, Italy, USA, Belgium, Holland, Japan, China, Taibei.

The Turkish packaging industry has been been developing recently very fast and presents now new technologies. 5,000 companies work in industial section of packaging industry, and according to the information of Trade-Industrial Chamber of Turkey, 56 companies-manufacturers are on the list of 1,000 leading Turkish companies. The export of packaging products is quite substantial, the export turnover in this branch is about $ 6 bln  USA, the profit is about $2 bln USA. The export is carried out to 180 countries, and among the main consumers of Turkish packaging industry are Germany, France, England and also Russia.
The data and figures given  above once again stress the fact that the packaging industry of Turkey deserves both our attention and study. It is worth mentioning the interesting design of some exhibition stands and the fact that the ceremony of the exhibition opening included the award presentation to the winners of the national student contest in the design of packaging.

At the exhibiton there was a meeting with the general secretary of the packaging association of Turkey (ASD) Mr. Dogan Erberk. The common problems on stadartization and education in packaging field and also the options of mutual cooperation between Russian and Turkish packagers were discussed.