At a press conference during interpack, the Shanghai World of Packaging trade fair was presented as a member of the recently expanded Interpack Alliance. Organized by Adsale
Hong Kong, Messe Düsseldorf and China’s InternationalCenter for Food and Drug Exchange, SWOP 2017 will be held from 7 to 10 November 2017, at the Shanghai New International Expo Center. With some 600 exhibitors, the show is expected to attract more than 30,000 visitors. For the first time in China, the Save Food Conference, organized by interpack and the FAO, will be held at this show.
As Adsale Chairman Stanley Chu emphasized in a lengthy presentation, SWOP 2017 will address packaging of food, beverages, confectionery, baked goods, pharmaceutics, cosmetics, non-food consumer goods and industrial products in key emerging markets. Domestic and regional manufacturers of processing and packaging machinery are to be boosted in their search for business, innovation and development opportunities by a direct “supply and demand” platform providing insights into future packaging trends.
According to Chu, China currently has the second largest packaging industry after the USA in terms of sales turnover (2016: China USD 119 billion, USA USD 164 billion), divided over paper and board 39%, plastics 30%, metal 18%, glass 7% and others 6%. China’s food and beverage manufacturing and processing industry is made up by more than 5,200 enterprises with a sales turnover of USD 13.5 billion.
The country’s Five-Year Plan for 2016-2020 includes three objectives related to packaging: the development of green packaging while using low cost and green production technology; the adoption of intelligent manufacturing models for the production of smart packaging and smart packaging machinery; and the development of high-end packaging products. To achieve these objectives, a number of weaknesses have to be overcome, such as weak innovation and automation levels, non-environmental production models, and unbalanced industrial development. SWOP 2017 is considered an important opportunity to look for solutions and collaborative projects addressing these issues.
