drupa organisers, Messe Düsseldorf GmbH, and the Chinese association Printing and Printing Equipment Industries Association of China (PEIAC) will launch a dedicated platform for Functional Printing. The one-day conference Functional Printing China with accompanying table-top presentations will be held for the first time on 16 May in parallel with China Print, the trade fair for printing technology running in Beijing from 14 to 18 May 2013.
The new series of events is planned to be held annually and will be extended to include an exhibition area from 2014. Conference delegates can look forward to a line-up of national and international experts delivering talks on current trends, solutions and applications for functional printing and printed electronics. Speakers include experts like Wolfgang Mildner (CEO of PolyIC and Board Member at the Organic Electronic Association/VDM), Stan Farnsworth (Vice President NovaCentrix/ USA) and Dr Martin Schmitt-Lewen (Senior Manager, New Print Applications Research and Development Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG).
Functional printing in China is in the early stages of very promising developments. Be it in medicine, consumer electronics, in the field of packaging, be it on paper, film, metal, glass or other printing substrates – the spectrum of applications for this bridge technology makes for exciting functionalities opening up completely new markets, said Hans Werner Reinhard, Deputy Managing Director at Messe Düsseldorf and Chairman of Messe Düsseldorf China Ltd., summing up the potential functional printing holds. A study by the China Printing Technology Association forecasts a 21% growth in market volume between 2009 and 2016.
The topics revolving around printed electronics already played an important role at drupa 2012: at the drupa innovation park and numerous stands exhibitors presented innovations and application examples with a high market potential for a wide variety of industries. With the planned joint stand PEPSO – Printed Electronics Products and Solutions Messe Düsseldorf focuses on this topic at seven relevant trade fairs for retail, glass processing, packaging, plastic converting, print and medicine. As part of our strategy of international product families we want to establish a dedicated platform for functional printing on the Chinese market. In cooperation with our subsidiary Messe Düsseldorf China and PEIAC we will gradually develop this subject, which increases in importance and opens up new potential business, said Sabine Geldermann, responsible for drupa as a Director since the beginning of this year, commenting in this new project.
