A milestone for Bangladesh - Sk Bashir Uddin, managing director, Akij Group (left) and Johann Kreilinger, senior sales manager, Brückner Maschinenbau. Photo Brückner
The demand for high quality packaging film in Bangladesh is rising as it is in all of the South Asian countries as are the investments in building capacity. While in Bangladesh there have not been adequate local production capaci-ties, the Akij Group, one of the country’s largest business groups with companies in more than 22 branches of the industry and approximately 55,000 employees has entered the packaging film business with an investment in a Brückner BOPP line. The explicit decision for a high performance line clearly is futuristic and points to the Akij Group’s expansion strategy – for domestic consumption as well as for export markets
Bangladesh’s very first BOPP film production line’s specifications are impressive – 8.7 metres working width, 450 metres a minute production speed for an annual output capacity of up to 40,000 tonnes. The line will produce a variety of the finest polypropylene packaging films and is especially equipped for the manufacture of sophisticated cigarette film. This neatly compliments and completes the Akij Group’s cigarette business – they now have everything in their own hands, from production to packaging.
Packaging South Asia is the cooperating media partner for drupa 2016 which is scheduled to be held from 31 May to 10 June at Dusseldorf, Germany
The Covid-19 pandemic led to the country-wide lockdown on 25 March 2020. It will be two years tomorrow as I write this. What have we learned in this time? Maybe the meaning of resilience since small companies like us have had to rely on our resources and the forbearance of our employees as we have struggled to produce our trade platforms.
The print and packaging industries have been fortunate, although the commercial printing industry is still to recover. We have learned more about the digital transformation that affects commercial printing and packaging. Ultimately digital will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future.
Web analytics show that we now have readership in North America and Europe amongst the 90 countries where our five platforms reach. Our traffic which more than doubled in 2020, has at times gone up by another 50% in 2021. And advertising which had fallen to pieces in 2020 and 2021, has started its return since January 2022.
As the economy approaches real growth with unevenness and shortages a given, we are looking forward to the PrintPack India exhibition in Greater Noida. We are again appointed to produce the Show Daily on all five days of the show from 26 to 30 May 2022.
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