Over 600 companies from all corners of the world and all seven exhibition halls were filled to the brim. This year’s Plastics and Rubber Processing Expo Plastpol’s facts and figures. The event has been held at Targi Kielce for 27 years, and now PLASTPOL has returned to its pre-pandemic shape, maintaining its international prestige.
The processing industry finds these few days of Targi Kielce’s Plastpol a business sectors holiday; this unique atmosphere is evidenced by mobilisation to act, willingness to meet and establish contacts.
Trade fairs, apart from meetings and contacts, also offer a perfect opportunity to boast about the industry’s development; thus many companies decide to sign important contracts at the expo. This time it is exactly the same.
A seven-million EUR contract for the purchase of a production line was signed with the German company Reifenhauser and the Polish producer Bogucki Folie. The talks had continued for several years. The investment is to take Bogucki’s company to a new level.
The occasion was also used by Ulrich Reifenhäuser, CSO of the Reifenhauser Group, who presented his opinion on Polish-German industry relations.
“I believe that the Polish market is important, considering how fast it is developing. The market expands mainly due to the number of investments that Polish entrepreneurs have made in recent years. – I predict that soon Poland will become an important country for the German processing industry. Costs differences in energy consumption and logistics make Polish plastic products competitive and able to conquer the German market soon.”, says Ulrich Reifenhäuser.
Plastpol 2023 also witnessed the signing of the first distribution agreement between the Polish recycler of plastics – ML Polyolefins and the distributor from Western Europe – Brenntag.
ML Polyolefins will export its recycled products to six countries; Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
“Brenntag will reach customers who can make the most of these products. The product needs to meet the customer’s requirements, this is one pf prerequisites. Recycling and production of recyclate ought to match the quality of the original products; this is not easy. Therefore, the standardisation
of recyclate seems to be a necessity for its successful market recalculation”, said Tomasz Mikulski, President of the Management Board of ML Polyolefins during the press conference.
Sara Ghione, Brenntag Polymers EMEA Director indicated that the company decided to cooperate with ML Polyolefins owint to ML Polyolefins’ excellent track record in the recycling sector. “The firm provides a high-quality product; there is customers base ready to purchase”, she said.
It has been Plastpol tradition to begin with the annual report on the processing industry, delivered by the PlasticsEurope Polska Foundation. Although 2022’s the total foreign trade balance of the plastics industry in Poland was negative (1 million 879 thousand tons), it was still better, compared to 2021 results; this positive development was owed to a decrease in imports of polymers by approx. 0.5 million tons and systematic growth of plastic products exports. The employment rate has also increased.
This year’s Plastpol was particularly important due to geopolitical changes in Europe, which affect supply chains and sales markets, thus Poland has a chance to take Russia and Belarus’ place and become important for foreign trade in plastics and rubber. Therefore, this year’s expo was attended by exhibitors from 29 countries; Targi Kielce epxo halls hosted representatives of companies from India, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Portugal, but also Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China, at.al.