Overall Market Situation Africa
The fastest increases in demand for corrugated boxes will occur in developing regions, which includes also the Africa/Mideast region which will outpace the global average. However, India and China will still see the fastest gains as a result of strong growth in industrial output and consumer product markets. Gains will be driven by growth in manufacturing of packaged goods and by improvements in small flute and graphic board that will penetrate traditional folding carton applications. Food and beverages will remain also in Africa the leading market for corrugated boxes in 2017.
MENA (Middle East & North Africa) region’s geographic position and its abundant natural resources have given it immense strategic importance. The paper industry is at its beginning stages and trying to uplift its productivity, with key players investing in upgrading facilities, developing technologies and capturing market share. Egypt’s central location in the north east corner of Africa, between the major three continents of the world Africa, Asia and Europe provides an excellent access point to their markets for any investor who wishes to tap this region. Egypt acts as a bridge between East and West, North and South which qualify Egypt to be a very good strategic location for placing regional subsidiaries who are covering the entire area. The Egyptian market for paper, tissue, paperboard and pulp is expected to grow at an annual rate of 10% over the next three years. Egypt ‘s paper market covers 78% of demand from imports and only 22% from domestic sources, what makes Egypt its self a very promising market with booming capabilities.
P2
Reed Exhibitions SINOCorrugated 2017 visitor promotion during the Pack 2 Pack Exhibition 2016, which lasted from 22th to 24th of October in Cairo, Egypt, was a full success and a step forward for Reeds activities on the African continent. The exhibition is the biggest platform for Packing & Packaging Machinery, Products, Materials, Logistics and Services in this area. The information exchange with visitors and exhibitors showed clearly that the SINO Corrugated is also in Africa already a very well-known brand. This goes along with Reeds own approach to provide visitors and exhibitors a global platform which they can find that centralized nowhere in printing and packaging industry. Further activities from Reed for Q1 in 2017 are planned and will be announced soon.
Reeds clients with a strong market position
During the Exhibition Reed was able to visit locally in total three factories. One of these visits was at Misr El Hadara for Cardboard & Paper Industries Co. with machines and equipment from Reed's long time exhibitors Wanlian (Corrugator, full production line, 200 m/min.), Nantai Asahi (Automatic Flat Die-Cutter), Haili (Corrugated Rolls), Mosca (Strapping), Kai Tuo, Meiguang and Weipong Qingdao. The cardboard production of this factory gets the orders mainly from the food and beverage industry for clients like Americana and Coca Cola (AquaFina). Between 60-70 % of all the machines in the Egyptian packaging and printing industry are already from Chinese manufacturers. One of the biggest player's is Unipak Nile. In Egypt four types of factories can be found, starting from first and ending up with fourth tier plants. This company belongs from its size and the output to the second tier category, started production in 2002 and is settled on an area of 13.000 square meters. Currently 800 tons of output of cardboard can be achieved every month. Last month an upgrade of the existing machines took place. Due to this the new 12 month target is now 3500 tons per month. More machines from China will arrive within the next 2 months to close the circle. It is scheduled to also open up an own paper mill on an area of 20.000 square meters after they reached the targeted 3500 tons of output, latest in 2019 (Testliner, Kraftliner, Fluting).