Gulf Print & Pack 2021: Dubai's 14th Middle East Packaging & Printing Showcase

The 14th Middle East (Dubai) International Packaging and Printing Machinery Exhibition — Gulf Print & Pack 2021 — is staged at the Dubai World Trade Centre Exhibition Hall. Organised by Fairs and Exhibitions, part of the UK's TARSUS Group, the show traces its origins to 1997, and TARSUS runs a portfolio of well-known packaging and printing exhibitions worldwide. Exhibitors and visitors have historically arrived from an exceptionally wide spread of territories, giving Chinese suppliers a platform to present their products while building exchanges and cooperation with high-calibre overseas packaging and printing machinery manufacturers.

In scale terms, close to 300 companies from more than 50 countries and regions exhibit, occupying a total floor area of over 13,000 square metres.

In 2017 the event attracted nearly 10,000 professional visitors from 90 countries, with visitor numbers up 14.9%. Buyers travelled from across the wider Middle East and North Africa, and growth from Egypt, Nigeria and Turkey stood out in particular; 37% of visitors came from countries outside the UAE. That geographic breadth once again let Chinese exhibitors promote their products while exchanging know-how with leading overseas packaging and printing machinery businesses.

Chinese companies have also made their mark: more than 1,000 square metres of exhibition space and 90-plus exhibitors, drawing strong attention in the Dubai packaging and printing market. Running across four days and packed with industry professionals and buyers, the show is an ideal setting for exhibitors to display new machines, technologies and materials and to roll out new products.

The United Arab Emirates sits on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, bordering Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman and facing the Arabian Gulf. That location has turned it into a major distribution hub for goods across the Middle East, and Dubai is widely known as the “Hong Kong of the Middle East”. The market is open, affluent and a free-trade meeting point for goods from many nations, and regional imports of packaging and printing machinery are growing at 15–20% per year. To serve that rapidly expanding Middle East demand and help quality goods from around the world enter the market, the exhibition has kept broadening its scope and scale and has spun off a standalone label show; each edition generates turnover reaching tens of millions of US dollars. For Chinese importers and exporters aiming at international markets, the Middle East is a vital platform for building their own brands, and Dubai is the jewel at its centre. With no foreign exchange controls, the market is easy to enter, and Chinese products have long been favoured for their mid-range positioning, complete specifications and reasonable pricing. The show therefore opens a valuable route for exporting Chinese packaging and printing machinery to the Middle East and for finding local distributors and import agents, while giving exhibitors the chance to join a professional trade fair and study the market — benefits that should reach every Chinese exhibitor.

Packaging machinery and components: vacuum packaging machines, folder gluers, bag-making machines; filling, dosing, sealing, carton-sealing and labelling machinery; coding machines; packaging machinery; household and personal care packaging machinery; plastic flexible packaging equipment; pharmaceutical packaging machinery; plastics machinery; and a wide range of die-cutting tooling and parts; corrugated and honeycomb board equipment, carton machinery, cartons, paper tape, pulp and more.

Materials and converting equipment: co-extrusion and lamination lines, stretch blown film, foamed sheet, board and paper cores, aluminium foil and aluminium materials, adhesive tape and hot-melt adhesive processing machinery; plastic, metal, pharmaceutical and eco-friendly packaging materials. Packaging containers: metal containers and glass containers, alongside green packaging technology, anti-counterfeiting packaging technology, packaging design, packaging processes and packaging trade media.

Printing equipment: offset presses, plate-making equipment… (source text truncated).