Eleven Italian machinery manufacturers operating in the packaging industry are gathering at an exhibition in Ho Chi Minh City to look for new customers and introduce their latest packaging technologies.

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It is a 266 percent rise in the number of Italian firms joining the PROPAK 2015 exhibition, organized from March 31 to April 2, at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, said Bruna Santarelli, a trade commissioner at the Italian Trade Commission in Vietnam.

The eleven Italian firms partaking in the PROPAK 2015 include HTBS, Brenna, P.E. Labellers, CFT, AMUT, OCME, Melegari Manghi, Pietribiasi, Gorreri, TMCI Padovan, and FMT.

They are class-leading manufacturers of a variety of packaging machinery for extrusion lines, thermoforming, multi-layer blown film lines, pasteurizing, filling, cleaning, labeling, and palletizing, Santarelli said.

The Italian businesses, besides showing their products and latest developments to manufacturers in Vietnam to seek for new partners, also look to expand their market share in the fast-growing Asian market in general, and in the Southeast Asian nation in particular.

Some, like CFT, also signaled future investment for the establishment of a plant in Vietnam, or want to find a local firm to act as an intermediary for distributing Italian machinery and equipment in Vietnam.

Many have already set up a representative office in Vietnam, or in Thailand, in an effort to tap the developing regional market.

The closer a firm gets to its potential customer, the better it understands the customer’s needs and can thus offer the right machinery and timely solutions, a representative of the Italian delegation said.

Bruna Santarelli, a trade commissioner at the Italian Trade Commission in Vietnam, gives a brief speech at the PROPAK 2015 exhibition at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City on March 31, 2015. Photo: Thoai Tran

FMT, which built a complete bottling chain for the manufacturer of Red Bull energy drink in Vietnam in the past, or Gorreri, which set up the cake manufacturing line for many leading Vietnamese confectionery firms like Kinh Do Corp. and Bibica Co., in the 2000s, are seeking for new potential customers.

The delegation was gathered by the Italian Trade Commission in Vietnam, the Trade Promotion Department under the Italian Embassy in Vietnam, and the Italian Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Association.

Italy's packaging exports to Vietnam in 2014 were worth 23.4 million euros (US$25.2 million), Santarelli said, without citing the annual growth rate.

The PROPAK 2015 exhibition, organized by Singapore Exhibition Services and its local partner VCCI Exhibition Services for the 10th time in a row, is a leading international processing and packaging expo.

The three-day event has been attended by 267 exhibitors from 28 countries and territories, with foreign exhibitors occupying 79 percent of the total area covering 6,000 square meters.

There are eight international pavilions representing Germany, Korea, Italy, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and Thailand.

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