Pakistani entrepreneurs will participate in the '16th K-2004', an international trade fair for plastics & rubbers to be held in Dusseldorf, Germany from October 20 to 27, 2004.
Discussing this during a presentation, Jamil A. Naz, Director, Liaison Office for Messe Dusseldorf GmbH in Pakistan said here on Friday that traders and manufacturers from Pakistan have been visiting K-2004 for quite sometime now. The number of visitors from Pakistan is on the rise owing to the continuous innovations in the plastic & rubber industries world-wide and the importance of the event that is considered as the main hub for decision-makers in the industry.
He informed the participants that world-wide around 221 million tons of plastic and rubber were produced in 2003. Roughly, 176 million tons of this were plastic in primary form ie materials which are processed into plastic products.
According to an International Rubber Study Group (IRSG), around 10 million tons of rubber were processed into tyres and technical rubber products, while the remaining amount of almost 30 million tons of polymers is used to make fibers, paints, adhesives, dispersions and coatings. The process and technologies used to processes these 176 million tons of plastics and 19 million tons of rubbers are the center of K-2004.
In the last three years, consumption has increased by 26 million tons ie on average by 5.5 percent a year, exactly the same average rate as every year since 1990.
Naz further stated that this event is the world's largest and the oldest trade fair of its kind and is being held every three years since 1956. In the last event in 2001, there were around 2,500 exhibitors and around 250,000 trade visitors from as many as 103 countries. At K-2004 Duesseldorf, a larger number of visitors are expected from more than 103 countries, who will be taking advantage of the presence of more than 2,500 exhibitors from around the world displaying their products in more than 160,000 sqm area.
He further said that until now businessmen from Pakistan have only visited the event on regular basis for the acquisition of goods, technology, machinery and services in the plastics and rubber industry but they have never exhibited their products in this fair.
However, things are now changing in the right direction and Pakistan is coming up with the potential to actually display its products in the international market through this platform.