Tehran, Iran, April 19
By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:
On April 17 Iran wrapped up its 10th international plastics & rubber industry exhibition Iran Plast 2016, with many Iranian and foreign companies seeking business opportunities in the Islamic Republic.
It was the first time the foreign companies outnumbered locals at such event, Ahmad Ali Saatnia, expert and adviser at The Italian association of Plastics, Rubber and Moulds Manufacturing Association (ASSOCOMAPLAST), told Trend April 19.
ASSOCOMAPLAST was heading about 20 companies to the exhibition that was staged April 13-17.
However, the historically exceptional outnumbering was not all originated from positive factors as it was largely due to a ban on the event by members of the Iranian Processing & Moulds Association (PMMA), Saatnia pointed out.
Processing machine manufacturing companies of Iran under the umbrella of their PMMA Association unanimously avoided the exhibition due to various factors, which is something odd since most of such exhibitions around the world allocate their largest section to molds and processing machine manufacturers, he noted.
Most of these companies cited bad timing, transportation problems, lack of time for disassembling, dispatching and assembling of their machinery to expose at the exhibition and also the event's close date to the next Chinaplas exhibition in Shanghai, China as reasons for not attending, Saatnia said.
Saatnia, who himself had abstained from setting up a booth in the fairground as a show of respect for the PMMA of which he has been a co-founder, however, implied without further details that there has been more to their reasons for not attending.
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