Good evening respected members from the printing fraternity, ladies and gentlemen.

On behalf of PrintWeek India and Haymarket India, I welcome you to the eighth edition of the PrintWeek India Awards. I also would like to thank our respected chief guest Sanjiv Gupta - chief operating officer of Penguin Random House India for agreeing to be a part of the Awards ceremony.

In line with the general economic mood in the country which looks positive, our survey of the industry has many encouraging indicators.

We are looking at demand for better quality packaging of FMCG products. At present this is only 11kgs, and is expected to trigger a mammoth Rs 90,000-crore investment by the country’s paper industry. Indian paper mills will produce 20 million tonnes in 2020 and 27 million tonnes by 2030.

This Diwali has seen e-Commerce drive packaging consumption with Snapdeal pushing over 2-million boxes with their “Unbox” campaign. The top three online retailers Flipkart, Amazon India and Snapdeal sought to target a Rs 1,500 crore market this season. All this is getting reflected in the Rs 4,500-crore printing ink segment. Based on PrintWeek’s study, the big seven ink majors are bullish about India with new product launches or factory expansions.

The numbers are looking healthy for plates with a consumption of 40 mn sq/metres per annum; plus our friends from Henkel and Pidilite Industrial Products will testify that the demand for adhesives (be it: books and cartons) and founts, washes and miscellaneous consumables; is bullish!

This is the Drupa Year. Indian printers flocked to Drupa, and many vendors announced marquee orders from the Indian contingent.

PrintWeek India played its part. Our team lent a hand in the Drupa Daily Report newspaper which was published on all the eleven days of the show. The PrintWeek India’s team was an integral part of the print and online production of this publication.

This tradition continues at LabelExpo India in Greater Noida in mid-November.

Meanwhile, the good news is, like in 2015, we have partnered with IPAMA to publish the PrintPack newspaper during PrintPack 2017.

That's not all.

There are many BTL activities like Print Surveys and Knowledge Sharing Workshops and Customer Video-Tutorials which are on track. Please do keep checking for updates – on our website and the magazine.

Our Specials and Supplements on key segments within the print industry have been well received. In addition, we have been increasing our presence through social media. Our bulletins have one of the highest open rates by typical mailer standards, our Roundtables in B and C tier cities bring views and news from all over India.

Coming to the 8th edition of the Awards, we have received outstanding samples from 132 Indian print firms.

85 firms have entered our shortlist. These have been painstakingly selected from more than 1100 samples by 28 jury members comprising of print buyers and print specialists. Many of the 85 print firms are first-time print firms. I salute you.

Here, I do wish to take a moment to thank all the 28 jury members to have spent time at Raheja Xion during the Jury Week to help us arrive with a list of worthy winners.

Another activity that we are very keen to push is The PrintWeek Studio, an online portal to exhibit print applications. The Studio is an online repertoire of all things print – posters, labels, packaging jobs, brochures, books, printed electronics and the other categories. The idea is to celebrate that great print idea.

My personal passion is print.

We produce six print titles in India and many in the UK.

Some developments on the company front – Autocar, our flagship brand, continues to rule the automotive content space and has significantly increased its footprint through a strong presence on the web. The Autocar Performance Show continues to grow in strength and is scheduled to be held from the 8th to the 11th December this year at the BKC in Mumbai. I invite all of you to the boutique show.

We have and been making significant investments across our other titles like Stuff and WhatCar? too – within the vertical segment they represent. Our focus at Haymarket India has been the digital arena; plus there have been some new shows both in the exhibition and conference/seminar formats as well as specialised video tutorials.

Before I finish, I would sincerely thank all the sponsors for helping us conduct the PrintWeek India Awards and scale new heights and standards with each year.

A special thank you to the PrintWeek India team who have laboured to mount this show.

I would like to thank you for sharing your unique work in order to showcase the progress print has made in this country.

I once again thank all of you for being present – my best wishes to the shortlisted companies – may the best print sample win.

Thank you. Have a wonderful evening.