The ninth “Plastindia” fair (www.plastindia.org) will be held in Gandhinagar, several kilometres north of Ahmedabad, Gujarat / India from 5-10 February 2015. Earlier this year, organiser Plastindia Foundation (Mumbai / India; www.plastindiafoundation.org) had announced New Delhi as the site of the event, but it appears that the city’s fairgrounds are no longer capable of handling what has become the country’s largest plastics exhibit.

To date the triannual fair, which attracts about 125,000 visitors and more than 1,600 exhibitors, was only capable of being held in New Delhi, which boasts India’s largest fairgrounds, with 55,000 m²in exhibition space. In the wake of the 2012 edition, the state of Gujarat managed to win over the organisers for its new fairgrounds in Gandhinagar, located nearby India’s fourth largest metropolis Ahmedabad – about 1,000 km southwest of New Delhi.

However, since construction of the new fairgrounds has been delayed, the organisers remained fixed on New Delhi until the end of September – in part because neither Gandhinagar nor Ahmedabad are known internationally as exhibition hubs. It now appears that works at the site have advanced to a stage that allows the Plastindia Foundation to move the event to its new home, just five months ahead of the official opening.

Co-organiser Messe Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf / Germany; www.messe-duesseldorf.de), in charge of the fair’s international component, has already sent a catalogue containing questions and tasks related to the new fairgrounds to the Plastindia Foundation and has also sent a technical team to the site to assess its infrastructure. The German organiser reports that the move has not resulted in any cancellations on the part of the roughly 200 exhibitors from Europe, the US and Japan that have registered to date. So far, the international contingents handled by Messe Düsseldorf have booked about 6,000 m² of exhibition space at the event. The Plastindia Foundation expects the 2015 edition to draw about 150,000 visitors as well as 2,000 exhibitors from 40 different countries.

The Indian state of Gujarat is already home to about 60% of India’s plastics industry and is hoping that the fair will boost its goal of becoming an even larger plastics production hub. When the announcement in favour of Gandhinagar was made, state industrial minister Saurabh Patel said Gujarat plans to announce a strategy for the plastics industry aimed at making it easier for processors and producers to settle in the region.

According to the latest figures released by the Plastindia Foundation, the subcontinent’s per capital GPD is set to double by 2020, with household income expected to almost triple. This growth will also drive plastics consumption, which is expected to reach 20m t/y by 2020, while the country’s exports of plastics products are set to reach USD 8 bn. All in all, the industry’s direct and indirect employment figures are expected to rise from 1.2m in 2013 to about 2m by 2020. The association also expects that in order to cater to rising demand, the country’s plastics processing industry will operate more than 180,000 machines by the turn of the decade – up from the current 110,000.