Mr. Suresh Kilam, Executive Director of Asia Pulp and Paper finds Paper Arabia a perfect platform to launch new products and an ideal meeting place. He said “It is a unique platform where we can meet up with paper mills, merchants and customers from different parts of the world. It brings the paper industry under a single roof and thus facilitates printers, publishers and traders to meet and do business. The events like these should be organized in accordance with the convenience of visitors. Majority of our visitors are expected from India. Also, you can see a lot of people coming from Africa and the Middle East too. India is a big country and people prefer to travel to regions like Dubai rather than travelling within the country to meet up with traders. The main advantage in this region is that visitors can meet all leading players under a single roof.”
Further he added “APP is one of the largest exporters of paper and paper products into India. So, obviously most of our customers prefer to come here. We provide what customers prefer at a convenient location, which is Paper Arabia. The event gives us a platform to interact with mills and paper merchants and also serves as a springboard to launch new products. APP is a supermarket for papers. There’s no company in the world, which has a wide and diverse portfolio like us. The only product that we don’t make is newsprint.”
Announcing about the two new paper machines in the coming year, Mr. Suresh Kilam detailed about the new launches “It’s an Industrial board, folding box board machine. The machine is in its final stages and a unique thing about the machine is that it will be the single largest machine in the world producing about 300 tons of paper per day, i.e. 1.5 million tons per year. The machine will start production by this November/ December and the commercial production will start in March 2013. In addition to this, we have another machine that has a capacity of 1 million tons, which will start commercial production by May 2013. So, by combining these two machines, our production rates will go up by 2.5 million tons in the coming year. The entire team at APP is excited to launch the machines into the market.”
Sharing his experience at Paper Arabia during the past 5 years, he said, “Last year the show was interesting and this year, so far we think that it’s more interesting than the previous year. I think that while holding an exhibition, the timing should be well planned. Otherwise, you won’t reap the desired benefit out of the show. APP is the second largest paper manufacturer in the world and we always ensure that we participate in shows that cater to the paper industry. APP will be focusing on their entire product portfolio at this event.”
Commenting about the Middle East Market, he said, “As long as the situations are stable in Iran and Saudi Arabia, the growth chart of APP is going to remain the same. Our biggest consumer of paper and paper boards is Iran and Saudi Arabia, and of course UAE and the Gulf region. Syria and Lebanon are a very small market, and they offer a market for low quality, low priced items. We don’t anticipate a major competition emerging in the Middle East region. 22 years back we have opened a branch in Dubai because we had this vision that Dubai will become the trading hub in the region for the paper industry. When coming to the competition aspect, there are currently no paper mills that produce writing and printing paper in the Middle East region. What the mills produce are media and kraft paper and that too in a small quantity. The writing and printing paper is a major grade sold by us here, which constitutes 50% of our sales. Though the packaging sector is comparatively small for us, the growth is high in this sector. Last year, our packaging sales grew by almost 30%. Growth in stationery is stable, while the writing and printing paper segment has grown by over 10%.”
