ChemSpec India: still the number one Indian chemical show

Chemspec India 05, India's international exhibition on fine and specialty chemicals, held at the HITEX exhibition centre in Hyderabad on 23-24 February, received almost 5000 visitors.

The show was preceded by Chemical Weekly's seventh Business Outlook Conference, which attracted 340 delegates where the previous events in the series averaged 140 to 160. Chemical Weekly, India's leading news magazine of the chemicals industry, co-organised the event alongside DMG World Media's chemicals division and Services International.

The show was busy from the outset with approximately 30 companies from Europe, the US and Japan present as exhibitors. Many expressed the possibility that they would exhibit in 2006 when ChemSpec will be in Mumbai, and some have already booked.

'This is my first time in India and I have a very good feeling about it. The feedback we have got makes us keen to do the show again,' said Dr Horst Peuker, director of procurement for fine and processing chemicals at Lanxess. 'Many firms are here that I did not expect to see, such as big Indian pharma companies and a lot of fine chemicals producers - though it is just as important to us that a large number of small and medium-sized firms are here. We are also having a good number of chance meetings.'

Dr Jens Cuntze, head of new business develop-ment at Clariant's Specialty Fine Chemicals business was also impressed: 'The turnout was good. I have made a lot of new contacts at both conference and exhibition and had a lot of informal meetings with po-tential customers. We had two main purposes in mind in coming here: developing the local market in India and integrating our Indian site into our global capabilities. The event was useful in terms of both objectives.' Clariant has been well established in India for over 50 years and many of its customers were present at the show.

Raja Ram, managing director, Sigma-Aldrich Chemicals, India, said: 'This is the first Indian exhibi-tion I have been to where we are really pleased with the quantity and quality of the visitors. Only people from the right industries - chemicals, pharmaceuticals and biopharmaceuticals - have come. We will definitely attend next year.' Sigma-Aldrich Chemicals is currently setting up its own laboratory at Bangalore and sees India as 'a major link in global capabilities'.

ChemSpec India 06 will be held on 5-6 April 06, in Mumbai, India. The show will be at least 25% larger than in 2005 and floor space is already 30% booked. It will be preceded by the Chemical Weekly conference on 3-4 April. For information on exhibiting contact Paul Davis on +44 1737 855060 or padavis@uk.dmgworldmedia.com.