The industry is working steadily

Unipack.Ru is offering readers an interview with Alexander Boyko, General Director of National Packaging Confederation re industry present state in Russia and tasks facing the association.

Interview by Mikhail Bredis

What is your estimation of Russia’s packaging market present state? What are the latest changes and development trends?

According to experts the Russian packaging market ranks among top 10 packaging markets and is one of the leaders in growth rates. Regrettably, the market recovery seen post-crisis and in early 2013 has changed in the latter half of the year for an apprehensive anticipation of most operating companies’ performance decline. Although it is too early to sum up the industry results for the year 2013, the expected gain in production is 2-2.5%.

It should be noted that most investment plans have after all been implemented, e.g. SFT Group has put into operation a paper machine with 250K t annual capacity. A number of packaging companies upgraded their production. Packaging companies continued consolidating. Other trends include a growing demand for packaging with superior application properties. Closer attention is paid to packaging efficiency, end-user convenience and sustainability. New kinds of packaging have come up in different packaging sectors. Thus, Tetra Pak and PepsiCo have recently introduced their first Russian Domik v Derevne milk TetraEveroAseptic carton bottle filling line. The film material assortment has grown.

In terms of finances it may be hard to find a company feeling very well. And yet one may say that the situation is more or less stable. We are still optimistic. The market is still growing.

What is the situation in the packaging raw material market?

In early December Vienna hosted the Russian and CIS Pulp and Paper Industry conference held by the Adam Smith Institute. NCPack reps also participated in the event. This does not mean that our raw material supply issues have been solved. But some pulp and paper companies show improvement, and we hope there will be results. Our waste paper companies have become more active, but sadly the sector also has problems that are growing worse.

What tasks does NCPack see as a priority?

There are two task groups. One covers industry-wide tasks furthering Russian packaging industry growth including improvement of customs policy and interaction with legislative and executive authorities and development of technical regulations, analytical, educational, trade fair, international activities etc.

Internal tasks are primarily related to NCPack members, i.e. continuation and improvement of analytical work, expansion of contacts with producers of raw materials and consumers, search for investors, participation in trade shows and competitions.