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UAE Printers’ Association generates visitor interest
Work of members publicized at event
The UAE Printers Association was formed to represent printing houses in the United Arab Emirates, with an aim to bring together numerous participants in the printing business, in order to work collectively and develop the industry further. The Printers Association attracts members from all the Emirates in the UAE who cater to more than 50% of the market in the UAE. The association seeks to benefit the printing industry by creating goodwill and trust among members and a better relationship with suppliers, better understanding with the government and other departments, sharing available free capacities of machine, manpower and other facilities, facilitate awareness among members about the rapidly changing technological progress in the printing industry and provide assistance in conducting seminars as well.
Our purpose of participating in the show is also to publicise the work of our members. Some of these people are dealing with the European market. We have suppliers and printing presses as members. We received enquiries from 20 printing presses that are interested in joining us. At present we have around 30 printing presses as members which handle roughly 50% of the printing jobs in the UAE,” says Bilal Hatim Merhi, Association Coordinator.
IMPZ master plan unveiled
AED 2 billion investment envisaged
Details of the IMPZ master plan were unveiled at Gulf Print by Ahmad Bin Byat, director general of the Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone. Project director of IMPZ, Mohammed bin Ghalib speaks of a fund that would help new investors bring in the latest technology to Dubai and help them source business in the international market. They also announced the setting up of a packaging association.
"Currently, our industry is serving a market of two billion consumers. To help the investors, we plan to promote them in the international markets so that they can bring in large orders from international markets, making the IMPZ a global media production hub," says Bin Ghalib.
He says the government's total investment into developing the IMPZ will be around AED2 billion, "In the first phase, we are putting in AED800 million. Though recovery of the investment is not the main priority, we expect to recover the total investment within 10-15 years." The official expects over 300 mid-sized printing presses to position themselves at the IMPZ, each of which would require investment of about AED50 million. "There are large players as well as production studios and other affiliated facilities," he says.
According to him, IMPZ has been a front runner in supporting this exhibition. “The quality and type of people who visited our booth was very good. I am sure this will develop into a major event within the region in the near future. We had lot of enquiries at our booth. People could get first hand information and the model that we created for the exhibition was very helpful in making people understand the concept. We had visitors from the UAE, Saudi Arabian, European countries and Iran,” he says. 
Heidelberg’s post show business to reach AED 25 million
Event reinforced commitment to the region says Middle East general manager
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG provides solutions for the printing and publishing industry. It manufactures sheetfed presses, prepress and postpress equipments. The company had a stand of its own at Gulf Print for the first time. The prospects for the company following the event can go up to AED 25 million for the region. There were around 1000 visitors from KSA, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and from the emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Some of the orders closed include one Printmaster 74, two Printmaster 52s, three Suprasetters and two GTOs at the event itself.
Zeid Al-Jehni, general manager of Heidelberg Middle East FZCO., is very pleased with the company’s participation at the show. “Both the products that we are displaying – the Printmaster 52 and the Suprasetter were launched at Drupa this year. Drupa being an international exhibition, it is difficult to get across specifically to the regional visitor.  Our presence here helps interested parties to get hands on experience on these products. Besides, the local printers also feel that we have come to them as Heidelberg than the other way around, i.e. them coming to us at Drupa. We have scheduled demonstrations on both machines at least 3-4 times a day,” he says.
According to him, their presence at the show underlines their commitment to the region. The company’s technology and products will give them a competitive advantage in terms of quality and productivity.
“We are also promoting a workflow to help print shops to integrate all their processes and to facilitate optimum handling of their work orders. We are getting an assorted mix of visitors. The Suprasetter is directed at the large print houses. People who did not get a chance to travel to Drupa got a chance to see the machines here. People from the middle and lower management level generally do not get to see the international exhibition,” says Al-Jehni.
The company had also on show its consumables. “Some of the consumables that we are showing include media films, plates, pressroom chemicals, inks, blankets and lamination foils. The consumables' offering gives us a chance to maintain a steady flow of business. It also helps us in maintaining relationships with our customers. The more printing is done by our customers, the more consumables are required while equipment sale is seasonal or cyclical,” he says.
“On the sidelines, we gave a reception for 160 of our customers. The show has been a nice communication vehicle for us. We will participate in future editions of the show and are planning major participation at Saudi Print 2005. Our presence here on the other hand justified the effort and helped in reaffirming our position as a market leader. We were also able to get good customer and trade feedback,” concludes Al-Jehni.
Hewlett Packard confirms five orders for DesignJet 5500
Several ‘hot’ leads obtained from KSA and the UAE  
First time participant Hewlett Packard Middle East displayed solutions related to professional photography printing, graphic design, colour management, proofing and production. The company reportedly confirmed five orders for HP DesignJet 5500 from the UAE market and have 25 prospects for HP DesignJet 30 from UAE and Saudi Arabia and 16 prospects for HP DesignJet 130.
“The show went very well for us. It attracted many industry professionals. We could show our product range to representatives of advertising agencies and printing presses. The DesignJet series – both in the big and the small range received a good response. DesignJet 30 and 130 on display also generated lot of enthusiasm. Colour LaserJet 9500 drew a lot of attention because of its technology which can give commercial print quality. It is very useful for an advertising agency or a printing shop to print short-run jobs and is very affordable,” says Ernest Azzam, business development manager (LFP). 
Azzam observes that the exhibition has been growing in terms of number of attendees. “I hope next time it will be larger in terms of participation from exhibitors. The first day we had a lot of visitors from Iran and second day from Saudi Arabia and the third day mainly from the UAE,” he says. 
The company partnered with Layout Middle East in organising a seminar titled ‘From design to production,’ to show their solutions and technologies. “We talked about CMYK+ technology which is a new concept to help in standardising colours in production and enhancing the quality of the products printed by different equipment. People who participated appreciated the seminars,” says Azzam. HP partners were on hand to help visitors from their respective regions.
Creo concludes USD 2.3 million worth business at Gulf Print
CTP market in the UAE will be booming by 2005 says distributor
Digitage is a distributor for Creo products in the Middle East. Hossein Rahimi, general manager of the company says that the company had a good show.
“This is the third time that we are participating in the exhibition. We had a good response for our Creo pre-press equipment. The interested people were from the UAE, KSA, Iran, Kuwait and Iraq. We had USD 2.3 million worth of orders booked from the whole region. We started working on the prospects much before the exhibition but finalized these at the show as they like to see the machine and its potential before buying and the show presents the ideal occasion. They also like to survey the equipment and new technologies displayed by other suppliers before making a final decision. The occasion was also right because of the fact that all our sub-dealers were also present and it was easier to work on a contract. Our sub-dealers in UAE, KSA, Kuwait and Iran had attended the show,” says Rahimi.
According to him the show has improved over the years and the pre-show preparation and publicity has been done quite well. “We did announce our participation and had informed our customers much in advance on the seminar and product demonstrations that we were having at the show,” he says.
“ The CTP and the Veris proofer which was shown for the first time in the region and according to Rahimi, it drew a lot of attention. “The machine has many advantages like small footprints, non-stop working ability, better quality and improved production when compared to its predecessor, the Iris. Most people prefer to get the whole solution complete with installation and training support. We had deals for the complete solution including CTP, proofer, workflow, copy dot scanning solution and densitometric tools for colour calibration,” Rahimi says.
Rahimi holds that there is a great potential for their products in the region, “About 35 percent of the visitors to our booth were from the UAE, 30 percent from Iran, 25 percent from KSA and the others from Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar. There was a great interest from UAE based customers. It is believed the CTP market in the UAE will be booming in 2005. KSA is also a developing market and Iran has already developed with more than 60 CTP installations and still there is demand for more.”
Although generally happy with the show, he finds that there are some infrastructural details that needed to be looked into like air supply for instance. He feels that the organizers also should lower the overhead expenses carried over to the exhibitors, at least initially to attract more participants. It will then grow gradually over the years. Planning the construction of the booths adequately is very important according to him.
Rahimi reiterates his company’s support for the show, “We are committed to the show and will be participating in the next editions as well. The show is very important for regional printers who do not necessarily go to other international shows. Government support for the show should be generated to a greater extent. There should be more live demonstrations and shows as that will encourage more visitors.”
Cerutti Group promotes flexo and gravure ‘package’ at the show
Middle East market considered strongest in terms of potential
The Cerutti Group product range covers gravure and flexo based presses to print magazines and newspapers, print and convert film and board packaging, in-line and off-line equipment for light board. Cerutti's technology, together with that from Flexotecnica, Zerand, Iberica AG and Bernal make the Cerutti Group. Cerutti International NV controls 55% of Flexotecnica S.r.l.
Dr. Ohannes Cherian, area manager of Flexotecnica says, “The visitor turn out during the first two days was excellent and it became less during the last two days. But we had some very interested customers. Our main shareholder is Cerutti. Flexotecnica handles the flexo division while Cerutti is our rotogravure division. The show helped us in introducing our company to customers. We are giving complete attention to the region and have offices looking after KSA, Pakistan, India and other Middle East countries. We are really hopeful that we will come up with something really positive with these meetings we had with prospective customers. They have our proposals in their hands and are evaluating them. The show has made it easy to arrive at a decision.”
While acknowledging UAE’s important role in the print sector, Cherian says that the Cerutti Group is promoting our package of flexo and gravure presses. “Usually printers in the packaging industry use a wide range of technologies and we are able to provide different options and also a package at competitive prices,” says Cherian.  
He adds, “The majority of visitors to our booth were from the UAE. Some of the large print houses have shown a keen interest in our technologies. We are now ready to concentrate more on this market.” 
According to him the manufacturer should be in touch with the customers and should be able to adapt to local needs in terms of technology and philosophy of work. “The Middle East market is one of the strongest in terms of potential. We have orders from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and Iran. We will also be concentrating on the Iraq market as well. Together they are a 150 million population market which is almost as much as the European population. I am very confident that in the next 5-10 years, the market in the region will be booming,” Cherian opines.
Morgana Systems sells numbering machines to Oman, Qatar, Kuwait & Iran
First time exposure was good says director
UK’s Morgana Systems Ltd. demonstrated its finishing solutions for both litho and digital printers. Morgana first brought in its range of UFO folding machines and FSN and FRN5 numberers. In recent years Morgana has invested heavily in developing products that are particularly suited to finishing digitally printed output. The Morgana AutoCreaser was first seen at Drupa 2000, used for creasing digitally printed work prior to folding, while the Morgana DigiFold, launched in 2002, combined new creasing and folding technologies in a single unit.
Paul S. Garratt, director  of  Morgana says that the company’s main focus is on the digital print market. “We make machines both for the traditional and the digital market. Our Auto Creaser is new for this region. We are strong in Europe, US and Australasia. We didn’t have good sales here up till now. We will have to get more exposure and do more marketing. Creasing, numbering and folding machines have a strong market here. We sold two numbering machines to Oman during the show. Iran also poses to be a good market. The options that we provide are a combination of perforating and numbering, creasing and perforating and creasing and folding.”
According to him, Morgana has confirmed the following orders to GCC countries: one FSN, one autocreaser and one major folder was Minuteman Press in KSA, one FSN numbering machine to Millennium Printing Press of Qatar, two FSN numbering machines to Technical Printing Press, Oman, one Major folding machine to Al Najah Printing Press, one auto-creaser, one FSN numbering machine and one Major folding machine, one FSN (SRA2) numbering machine to Al Sayer Printing Press in Kuwait and one FSN numbering machine to Majlessi Trading in Iran. “This is the first time that we had such an exposure. Our machines are likely to find a big market here and hope to sell many more machines,” he says.
Vinay Krishnan, sales manager of Afra Printing Equipment Trading LLC – the GCC representative of Morgana says, “More than 22 numbering machines have been sold in the UAE. While the overall visitor turnout has not been very good, the participation from local attendees was quite good. We had visitors from Iran and Saudi Arabia and also got quite a few leads. Such local exhibitions are very important to appraise the market on new technologies. We are introducing a new product called the auto creaser at the show. Many people have shown a keen interest in the product. We are participating in another regional exhibition – The Tehran Book Fair.”
Ali Al Hashemi Trading receives several customer enquiries
Ties with existing customers strengthened
UAE based Ali Al Hashemi Trading Establishment is a supplier of print machinery, pre-owned and re-conditioned equipment, print media material and spare parts.
According to Mohammad Al Hashemi, vice president of the company, the exhibition was well attended. “We didn’t expect the visitor turnout that we had to our stand. The visitors came from different countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Iran. We received 150 serious enquiries for new and used machinery, digital machines and CTPs as well. The company’s participation in the show seeks to analyse the customers’ reaction to such exhibitions. We didn’t participate with the sole aim of closing deals because from our long experience in the field of printing, customers do not wait for exhibitions to buy the equipment they need.”
Al Hashemi added that “the organizers should prepare for the exhibition much before in advance and contact manufacturers and agents and send invitations to print houses in order to have an exhibition on a much larger scale. The event should also be held sometime between IPEX and Drupa, since visitors get to see all new technologies in these exhibitions.”
According to him, the company has a long history in supporting the customer since its establishment in 1950, especially in after-sales and service support. “This has helped us to build a reputation in the market and develop successful relationships with our customers. We provide all these services throughout our branches in UAE and in the entire Middle East in Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan,” he informs.
“Our presence at the show was important. We have many leads and hope to pursue them. We could meet our prospective customers face to face at the show. Most of our existing customers also visited us. Since we cater to niche market, exhibitions such as these are important to show our expertise in the pre-owned equipment category. It is a useful exhibition and we feel that it will be worth participating in next year’s show as well. Our participation this year was important, because we are at a stage where we are undergoing re-structuring and are re-focussing our marketing activities,” says Jayaprakash, marketing manager
On this year’s exhibition, Jayaprakash says “The exhibition should be aggressively promoted among suppliers and customers. We hope that in the coming year, Gulf Print will have better coverage and participation.” 
Technopress gets orders for Luscher CTPs from UAE and Oman
Floor plan needs improvement says managing director
Dubai based Techno Press Graphics LLC deals in new and pre-owned equipment. It also sells spare parts and accessories. The company has participated in the previous four editions of Gulf Print. The company exhibited a Mitsubishi printing press, Luscher CTP, digital printing systems, Didde commercial web systems, postpress equipment from Baum and equipment from C&P Microsystems and Foellmer and consumables from different companies at Gulf Print 2004.
Hamid Jaberzadeh, managing director reveals that he had the opportunity to meet new prospects and to take a few orders at the exhibition. “We have orders for CTP from the UAE and Oman. We have some deals for folding and cutting systems for the UAE and KSA markets. We sold some consumables to some local and Iran-based companies,” he says, adding that the specifics of the deals will be revealed in due course.
He expected more visitors than the actual attendee turnout and also expresses some displeasure at the way the event was planned, “The floor plan was not well-designed. The distance between booths was less, and visitors tended to overlook the booths that were located towards the sides of the hall. Moreover, many of the important print equipment manufacturers did not participate. More European companies should also participate. Among the others who participated, a large majority just had literature pertaining to their products in their booth, which generally defeats the purpose of exhibiting. The organizers should have publicized events, deals and important visitors through a daily newsletter and also discussed with the exhibiting companies and got recommendations on how to run a successful show. The publicity for the show should have started sufficiently early – at least eight months before the show date – for suppliers and customers to plan their investment.”
Jaberzadeh however, reaffirms his support for the show and hopes to participate in the next edition as well. He also suggests that the editions be more spaced out – i.e. a show every two or three years.
Layout’s QuarkXPress 6.1 and Copy Dot solutions generate interest
HP and Layout presentations well received
Layout Middle East FZ LLC is the regional distributor for QuarkXPress and Quark products and page layout and graphic design technologies.  
“The show was excellent. It has a targeted audience so it is getting the people that we wanted. We would expect more people to visit next year. The presentations that we had jointly organized with HP were very well received.  In general we had around 800 visitors to our stand in four days, and around 30-40 people daily attending our seminars. The majority of visitors were from the UAE and Saudi Arabia,” says Joe Karkour, general manager – Layout ME FZ LLC.
According to Karkour both QuarkXPress 6.1 for MAC OS X and the company’s new CopyDot solution (RepliDot 1.1) are generating interest in the printing and publishing arena. “Kalimat X is very popular in the region. Kalimat 3.0 is now installed on virtually every designer’s Apple machine since 1993, and the new Kalimat 4 for OS X upgrades were selling like hot cakes,” adds Karkour.
Paper and Board Trading registers interest in post-press equipment
Event helped get customer feedback on product range  
UAE based Paper and Board Trading Company LLC. is a distributor of Graphic Wizard print finishing equipment. In addition to its numbering machines, Graphic Wizard also manufactures systems which impact score, rotary score, slit, perforate, folding machine, and perform many other print finishing functions. 
“When you compare this exhibition with that of the previous years, it has improved a lot. It would have been better if the hours were from 9 am to 1 pm and from 4 pm to 9 pm. The visitors were from the UAE, KSA, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Iran. There was an active interest in the numbering and creasing machines that we are exhibiting. It is a good exhibition on the printing side. However, there is further scope for improvement,” says Masoud Kavakeb. 
“Graphic Wizard is committed to the print finishing equipment business. Throughout the manufacturing and distribution process, there are quality control checks from start to finish. Exhibitions like Gulf Print help us to get a good feedback about the product range as well, since we are continually searching for way to improve our existing product line.”
Metronic hoping to create regional structure in the Middle East
Distributor Notronics confirms two Genius 52 UV orders for Iraq and Iran
German Metronic is a member of the KBA Group and is active in the printing & coding industry. It was represented at the exhibition through Notronics, its sales and service partner in the area. Holger Volpert, director print technologies of Metronic says that the show has been good for the company.
"This is a developing market for us. We have sold machines to this area earlier. We expect to have more business in the future than in the past. We have sold different machines here. Also Genius 52UV, our latest machine has also been sold in the region. The other machines that are being sold are card personalization machines. We had a lot of interest from India and Pakistan," he says.
On the sales strategy, Volpert says, "In the past we have made direct deals with our customers. There were questions about after sales support. We have to create a regional structure incorporating local sales support. We have our own product line and have a niche market, which we will continue to serve."
Notronics is the distributor for Metronic in the GCC countries and for KBA sheet-fed printing press in Iran. It exhibited a Genius 52 UV offset printing press for plastic cards. The company had a good show according to Mehdi Rahimi, sales manager of Notronics.
Notronics also cooperates with PTC Company which is based in Germany for smooth delivery and successful launching of Metronic products in the region. Mohammad Hazeghneghad PTC’s managing director explains the cooperation scheme between these three companies, “After negotiations with Notronics, we agreed to work closely together in order to introduce Metronic technology including offset presses for plastic cards, CDs and other systems. We will handle technical and other issues in Germany. PTC will complete the Notronics team in order to better serve our customers. The machine we have introduced in this exhibition is a Genius 52 for plastic card printing. There is also another version for paper which we haven’t introduced in this show. Genius 52 has a waterless inking unit and lower maintenance. The Gravuflow inking system in this machine offers consistent print through the last sheet.”
Supporting Hazeghneghad’s comments, Mehdi Rahimi says, “The machine uses UV ink from well known ink manufacturers. However those printers who prefer inks from local suppliers can send their inks to Metronic in Germany and the company will test these and submit the results.”
“Press equipments from Notronics were appreciated greatly. Notronics had a very good business with the Iran market, especially for the printing equipment from KBA. The company is the dealer of KBA in the Iran market. We had several leads after Drupa and many of them were finalized at the show. We have been working on the 70 percent pre-show leads to confirm orders at the show. We have two confirmed orders for the Genius 52 UV offset printing machine from Iran and Iraq. We have two leads from the UAE market as well and had some interest from the Saudi and Iraq markets for our products,” says Rahimi. 
Drent Goebel secures 60 leads for VSOP technology
 VSOP already in Turkey and Iran says general manager-sales 
 Dutch company Drent Goebel primarily promoted the Variable Sleeve Offset Printing (VSOP) that allows variable print lengths in offset, at Gulf Print. 
According to Ing. Rob Schellekens, general manager marketing and sales with Drent Goebel, the show was interesting, but was not quiet in terms of attendance. “But, we did have interesting leads and had good discussions. We have not closed a deal at the show, but we think we’re close to doing so in the next few weeks. We had about 60 new leads, and several exciting projects that are ongoing.” 
 He says that the exhibition was well organized, but the promotion must be stronger next year. He adds that the company will exhibit again and that he strongly believes that the Middle East is one of the most promising new markets in the world. “There is a definite shift in the market, when it comes to exciting printing technology. Today’s straight flexo or gravure applications are subject to study for lower image-carrier costs and better quality. In additions to that, the market is over-saturated, so there is a strong need for machine-efficiency and high level of uptime of the press, for which you need a fast make ready. Another point of gaining interest is the incorporation of security features in the printed products. All these elements are being covered by Drent Goebel in particular with the VSOP.  Sleeve technology already exists for many years in flexo. But why not in offset? Offset has good print quality the image carriers are only 10% as in flexo and only 5% as in gravure. As job lengths are becoming smaller and smaller, this cost element is getting more dominant and bringing margins down to a dangerous level,” Rob Schellekens says.
“When we study the different technologies of printing variable sizes, the most cost-effective option is to go for a VSOP. For instance, in print packaging at least 20 different sizes are used. Before the VSOP, it was not possible to do so in offset.  But now, with the sleeve technology, packaging products finally can be cost-effectively produced in offset. Not without a reason, is for instance the folding cardboard market dominated by sheetfed offset because of the excellent print quality. But why in sheetfed? Because of variable cut-off. This now, can also be done in rotary, using variable size sleeve technology. Drent Goebel was the first world wide to introduce this technology, and has a patent on this. Another advantage is that the machine can be configured in stand alone modules. We can configure the press with all known printing processes like gravure, flexo, silkscreen, laminating, hotfoil, embossing and die-cutting. We customize the machine as per the needs of the customer and always lay stress on designing individual modules than the complete machine. Thus, the customer is never stuck to his initial purchase of the press, but remains flexible for the future, as no printer knows his needs over 3 or 4 years. With the fully servo driven modules, he can add, shift or take out modules easily later on at any time. This guarantees printers adaptive power also for the future,” he explains.
According to him the market was not in a good condition when Drent took over Goebel in 2001. “Now the market is picking up, especially in the US, China, Asia, Turkey, Iran, Armenia, Kazakhstan, where large scale printing is done for flexible packaging, direct mail and business forms. The VSOP has been installed in Turkey, and was sold in Iran. Till September more than 160 VSOP units have been sold world wide, in all the available web widths: 520, 850, 1120 and 1250.  Following Drupa, there were many enquiries for the VSOP from the Gulf region,” he says. 
Kodak Versamark to promote digital narrow format printers
Middle East ready to accept digital printing says regional sales manager
Kodak Versamark (Asia Pacific) was represented at its India based distributor Creed Engineers’ booth. The company’s stated objective is to provide printing solutions for commercial and transactional communication printers.
Andrew Cheung, regional sales manager of the company observes that the exhibition was very quiet in terms of visitor participation. “This is a new venue and the organizers should have advertised the show more. I am sure there are quite a few people who are not aware of the exhibition or the new venue of the exhibition,” says Cheung.   
There has been a Kodak Versamark installation in Abu Dhabi. The printer is being used for the business form market. Cheung feels that the Middle East market will accept digital printing in the near future. “I would prefer to look at digital printing in a different way. All companies have lot of variable data printing to be done and it is a cost saving solution. Basically we target the business forms printer, the commercial printer and the corporate office where documents such as accounts statements and telephone bills are printed. Besides, the information technology industry is rapidly developing in the UAE and the region has the potential to develop as an outsourcing centre. Here digital printing holds potential.” 
He adds, “We did get a couple of leads at Gulf Print and we will continue to participate in exhibitions. We will work with some of the distributor partners to have specially designed one-to-one seminars or group seminar targeting different groups.”
The company is making use of the Kodak office in Dubai and the existing connections to market its products. “We want to sell tailor-made solutions and actually do not want to limit ourselves to the printing world only. We went a step further by going into IT and hope to link up with a CRM company on a project basis which can be quoted as a success story for future such plans,” says Cheung. 
iTM secures leads from Iran, KSA for Esko-Graphics  
Excellent exposure obtained says distributor
Esko-Graphics provides packaging pre-production solutions and they are a supplier of prepress systems for commercial printers. 
Imad Shaban, director of Industrial Tools and Media FZ-LLC, the distributor for Esko-Graphics products in the region, is of the view that the show had provided an ‘excellent’ exposure. “We had a number of prospects from KSA and Iran. We did not expect any deals to be finalized during the course of the exhibition, but we were able to meet new people. Most of the major deals have been finalized after Drupa, but this show provides an important exposure. For the first time the exhibition has been held as per international standards and this is the best show so far. There were not as many visitors as was expected. We hoped that visitors from some small to medium sized companies will be coming but we have no complaints either. We are happy that we had decided to participate.” 
According to him, people generally go to shows in Europe to know more about new technologies. “This show hopes to introduce the dealers as those who are serious and committed to supporting the regional clients. We are able to discuss the customers’ requirements at a place that is closer to his home. I think this is the main advantage of participation,” he says.

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