The recently concluded Chinacoat 2023 exhibition at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre indicated a faster recovery for the paints and coating industry.

After four years of absence in Shanghai, Chinacoat 2023 brought 38,623 visitors, including 34,305 Domestic China and 4,318 overseas visitors back together and supercharged business opportunities for 1,081 exhibitors around the world. Its gross exhibition area exceeded 75,800 square meters, increasing by over 60% compared with 2022 Guangzhou Show.

Chinacoat 2023 was spread over in 10 huge halls and still equal amount were for surface coatings and equipment manufacturers.

“This year Chinacoat in Shanghai was not much different except many European and American companies didn’t participate both as exhibitors and as visitors due to the current ongoing challenges in their own countries. The economic outlook being gloomy due to the high cost of production in these countries with relatively high inflation and slowdown in their overall economy,” Ishan Raveshia, Managing Director, VOXCO Pigments, said. Raveshia visited Chinacoat 2023.

According to Raveshia, the representation of Indians exhibitors too at Chinacoat 2023 was comparatively less due to the ongoing Diwali festivities and the market slowdown in China. The only major Indian stalls visible were that of Pthalocyanine Blue and Green pigments.

India exports a sizeable volume of these pigments to China on an annual basis and this is inspite of their being an anti-dumping duty levied by the Chinese government. Hence, the presence of these companies as an exhibitor was duly justified.  He said that the Indian products for coatings still don’t have very large value in Chinese markets.

“The current manufacturing volumes in China is low due to the softness of the local demand and limited exports. For this reason, many Chinese companies participated largely to promote their products and to try and understand the global market demand by meeting the international visitors.  The other visitors seen were from South East, Far East and Middle East countries, who were keen to meet their long term suppliers, principals to discuss market strategies and visit the Chinese production units,” he added.

He informed that the Indian visitors did attend the show in good numbers as it was open to travel after a long time. Many Indian distributors and customers were keen to meet their Chinese principals personally as the Indian government is still not granting visitors visas to Chinese citizen to come to India.  Raveshia opined that Indians get due credit because of their consistent quality, fair prices, long term commitment, technical knowledge and communication skills.