Echaar Equipment had a very successful show at the Printpack India 2022 exhibition. Kirti Panchal, managing director of Echaar said, “The positive aspect is that visitors are coming with a purpose – they are looking to diversify and hence sizing up all aspects of the game. Being a flexible packaging machine manufacturer, participating in this exhibition initially looked irrelevant to us but eventually, it turned out to be the right decision. People are keen on investing since the economy is opening up and that is good news for the industry.”
Samples printed on Echaar’s CI-flexo were highly appreciated by the visitors at the Printpack exhibition. The company currently manufactures CI flexo press in three series – Flexomaster, Flexodelight and Flexosmart. Flexosmart, which was launched just recently, has already been booked by an Ahmedabad-based flexible packaging company.
Panchal said, “The print quality of the samples printed on our CI flexo was highly appreciated by our visitors since the quality is at par with gravure. The saying that CI flexo cannot meet the quality of rotogravure is now history. Advanced technology, state-of-the-art automation and intense R&D have changed the game for CI.”
Panchal is quite optimistic about the CI flexo market in India. He said, “Currently there are about 10,000 rotogravure machines running in India. In contrast, there are only 92 to 94 CI flexo presses running. That means, there is a scope for at least 9,900 CI flexo machines in India. The market for CI flexo is bright in India – that is what I can reiterate about the future of CI flexo market in India.”
Panchal said about market challenges, “Indian machine manufacturers are facing a tremendous challenge from foreign manufacturers despite producing machines of equal standard. Foreign manufacturers are able to offer a credit period of up to three years to their customers because bank interest rates in their countries are fairly low. But we cannot offer long credit periods to our customers because of the higher interest rates in our country. This makes it difficult for us to sell an Indian press to an Indian customer. Our government must do something about this before long to make the ‘Make in India’ initiative truly successful.”
