Mexico City — Plastimagen México 2022 got underway March 8, an event that one plastics industry leader in Mexico said would be "the starting point towards the economic reactivation of our industry."
"The industry is ready to get back to business and drive economic development," José Navarro Meneses, managing director of exhibition specialist Tarsus México, said during an opening ceremony speech at the Centro CitiBanamex complex in the Mexican capital.
Expo Plásticos, a smaller, in-person trade show, was held over three days in Guadalajara, Mexico's second city, last November. Organized by a Mexican company called Trade Show Factory, of Monterrey, it was the expo's 14th edition.
Navarro, however, insisted that the four-day Plastimagen México event, now in its 23rd edition, is among the "five most important" plastics industry trade shows in the world and the largest in Latin America.
Aldimir Torres Arenas, president of national plastics industry association Anipac, described Plastimagen México 2022 as "the starting point towards the economic reactivation of our industry." Since 2020, the industry had contracted 6.4 percent, due to the pandemic and "regulatory issues," he added.
Production volumes in Mexico had diminished considerably. "But far from discouraging us, it should encourage us to work together, to spur on the 5,100 companies that comprise the [Mexican] industry to continue being the driving force behind the national economy."
Anipac, (Asociación Nacional de Industrias del Plástico A.C.) expects the industry to grow 4.2 percent a year over the next three or four years, the association said in the news release.
Tony Radoszewski, president and CEO of the Washington-based Plastics Industry Association, acknowledged the plastics industry is experiencing difficult times. But it should feel proud of the fact that plastics had improved modern society's quality of life, he said.
Covering 366,000 square feet of floor space, the show has products and services from 480 exhibitors, 22 countries and one China-administered region on display. The participating countries are: Germany, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, China, Denmark, Spain, United States, France, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey.