Plastic fair kicks off Thursday

Plastic goods from local and international markets will be put up on display at the four-day “International Plastics Fair-2019” at International Convention City Bashundhara in the capital's Purbachal starting Thursday.

Industries Minister Nurul Majid Mahmud Humayun is set to inaugurate the fair, to be jointly organised by the Bangladesh Plastic Goods Manufacturers & Exporters Association and Yorkers Trade & Marketing Service Co Ltd.

Doors will stay open for visitors from 12pm to 8pm.

Some 480 companies from 19 countries will take part and there will be 780 stalls for presenting products in 15 categories, said Md Jashim Uddin, president of the association, at a press conference in its Dhaka office yesterday.

The major categories include packaging materials, plastic moulds, crockery, pharmaceutical, household and toy items, furniture, melamine products, garment accessories and polypropylene woven bags, he said.

Foreign companies will display machinery used in manufacturing goods such as injection moulding machine, PP woven bag machine, packaging machine, flexographic printing machine, PET blow machine, plastic bag making machine etc.

He said the association prepared a roadmap for 2030, estimating that annual consumption per person would rise from five kilogrammes to 30 kilogrammes.

The market size of the plastic sector is around Tk 25,000 crore while the sector has given Tk 3,500 crore in revenue to the government last fiscal year.

Over 12 lakh people are dependent on nearly 5,000 small and medium plastic factories while plastic goods ranked 12th among national exports last fiscal year, said Jashim Uddin. He said the sector was annually growing by 20 percent for the past few years.

Addressing the press conference, the association president said local companies were capable of producing goods of global standards such as jugs, mugs, drug packets, syringes, blood collection bags, tableware, doors, windows, sanitary ware, electronics, telephone sets and toys.

The global market size of plastic goods is around $570 billion while Bangladesh's share is only 0.06 percent.

In fiscal 2017-18, Bangladesh exported plastic goods worth $60.49 million, which was 1.4 percent of the country's total export of $36.44 million, according to the association. In the previous fiscal year, plastic goods export was $607.15 million.

He said plastic industries have become an important industrial sector in Bangladesh in the past two decades.

The growing industry has a multiplying effect on numerous important sectors in the country's economy, he said.

Jashim Uddin said the fair would help increase investment and exports.

Among others, Judy Wang, president of Yorkers Trade & Marketing Service Co Ltd, Hong Kong, addressed the programme.