Messe Düsseldorf, organizer of leading international trade fairs for the printing and packaging industries, extends its portfolio to include a promising event in the Middle East: IPAP Tehran (Iran’s Printing and Packaging Industry Exhibition) powered by drupa will be held from October 12 – 15, 2017 at Shahr-e-Aftab (Exhibiran International), Iran’s most modern exhibition center. Staged in cooperation with the Iranian organizer BRP, the trade fair targets all suppliers along the entire value chain for printing technologies - from prepress/print, premedia/multichannel, postpress, converting and packaging, materials, equipment, services and infrastructure. pacprocess Tehran and iFood Expo will be held concurrently.

Iran has been an extremely attractive market since the international sanctions were eased in early 2016 because its economy faces backlog demand in every area. An emerging region with some 80 million inhabitants – experts expect 12% economic growth by late 2017 alone, projects with foreign investment worth a 3-digit billion amount are forecasted. Its population of eager consumers increasingly demand high-quality print and packaging products, which cannot be manufactured in a competitive quality with the existing, often obsolete technology used by local companies. Even though the local printing industry is quite well developed compared to many other markets in the Near and Middle East, it has now come under high pressure to invest. This opens up huge opportunities especially for European suppliers because their products have traditionally been highly valued in Iran. Of importance in this context are packaging and offset printing presses as well as developments in digital print applications because these machines have to be imported.

“Counting over 32,000 offset print shops, about 50,000 digital print service providers and some 65,000 other upstream suppliers to the printing industry, the Iranian market holds attractive potential for further business development. IPAP is a well-established trade fair already, which until now was held in Mashhad, the country’s second largest city, located approximately 850 kilometers east of Tehran. Moving to Tehran and cooperating with drupa – the no.1 for printing technologies opens up new opportunities for growth and greater international reach. With our expertise we accompany interested companies on their way into an emerging region,” stated Sabine Geldermann, Global Head of Print Technologies at Messe Düsseldorf.

Shahr-e-Aftab (Exhibiran International) is Iran’s latest and biggest exhibition center. Conveniently located between Tehran City and the international airport with access to several highways and public transportation connections, it offers 1.3 million square feet of exhibit space in 16 halls with the latest technical equipment, traditional Persian landscaping as well as comprehensive services such as food service, hotels, banks and multi-storey car parks. The central location also allows visitors from neighboring states such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, which have traditionally maintained close commercial ties with Iran, to visit the exhibition. This also benefits the exhibitors at IPAP Tehran, opening up business opportunities in those countries.

Also forming part of IPAP Tehran will be pacprocess Tehran which targets companies from the packaging sector and related processing industries. pacprocess Tehran is an integral part of Messe Düsseldorf’s interpack alliance.

Messe Düsseldorf is renowned internationally in the printing and packaging industries as the organizer of the No. 1 trade fair for their respective sectors: drupa and interpack. In addition to drupa, Messe Düsseldorf organizes both its own trade fairs and, in cooperation with its subsidiaries, regional trade fairs for the print and media industry such as All in Print in Shanghai, Pack Print International in Bangkok, printpack alger in Algiers and indoprint in Jakarta.