Arabplast concludes recording machinery deals worth over $3bn

The show highlighted that per capita consumption of plastics that crossed 39 kg in the GCC, 33% higher than the world average and almost 8 times more than India.

The per capita consumption of plastics in North America is 90 kg, in West Europe it is 65 kg, 10 kg in Eastern Europe, 12 kg in China, 5 kg in India, 10 kg in South East Asia and 18 kg in Latin America.

Mr. Satish Khanna, General Manager, Al Fajer Information & Services said: "Plastics consumption in the Middle East is rapidly increasing. Events like World Cup Doha 2022 are boosting this consumption. Plastics is also used heavily in infrastructure and this explains the rapidly increasing consumption amongst individuals and corporate alike. Plastics and petrochemical companies in the GCC are equipping their factories with latest technologies and machineries to increase their production capacities. This is where these multi-billion deals at the show were generated."

Plastics are being produced domestically due to the high availability of petrochemical raw material in the GCC. Best practices adopted in the world are being brought into this region through Arabplast 2013.

Arabplast stressed that a huge amount of plastics in different formats is needed to cater to the requirements of the World Cup 2022 in Doha where construction and redevelopment of stadiums for the Mondial is under construction. In Qatar, five stadiums are currently in planning or tendering stages and these would need large quantities of plastics that could be partially or fully supplied domestically.

Khanna added: "The Gulf States command an 11% share of the $600bn global petrochemical industry. Gulf States could develop a domestic market for consuming their petrochemicals instead of exporting it to almost all other countries in the world."

Companies were aggressively competing to showcase their latest technology in plastics manufacturing at the four day exhibition.

Major sponsors for Arabplast 2013 include QAPCO, BOROUGE, PETRORABIGH and TASNEE.

On display at Arabplast 2013 were new products and technologies in injection molding, blow molding, wrapping and packaging, pre and post plastic processing techniques as well as raw materials, such as masterbatches, additives and polymers.

The show covers a wide spectrum of plastic machinery, plastic/rubber processing technology, pre and post-processing systems, plastic packaging technology, injection molding, blow molding, wrapping technology, extrusions, chemicals and additives, semi finished goods, engineering plastics and plastic products.