Interpack tests German-Italian leadership

Interpack, the world's most important trade fair dedicated to the packaging industry, returns after a 6-year absence and will be the test case for measuring the health and prospects of the packaging technology market, which according to the latest Cube report by the Mecs Study Center is poised to grow by an average of 3.8 percent each year between now and 2026, to reach an estimated close to 60 billion euros globally.

More than 60 countries are represented from May 4 to 10 in Dusseldorf, from all 5 continents, and more than 2,700 are exhibitors at the fair: Germany becomes the center of the global packaging industry and a reference point for discussing the future of the sector, between digitization and sustainability. In fact, Dusseldorf has been the capital of the most relevant exhibition event for international manufacturers for more than two decades: Germany together with Italy dominates the packaging sector in Western countries and they are destined to maintain the supremacy until 2026 according to estimates by the Mecs Study Center. However, the EU packaging machinery market is gradually losing ground to the demand coming from Asia and is far behind the dynamism of the African new entrants; growth for the two major European manufacturers is expected to remain below the world average with +2.7 percent annually in Italy and +2.4 percent in Germany.

The supremacy of these two countries in the packaging sector is clearly evident by looking at the distribution of companies at Interpack: Germany is present with 584 exhibitors, followed immediately by Italy with no less than 434 booths; third, but with a large gap, is China at 301 total exhibitors, demonstrating its growing relevance in the sector. 

In fact, China occupies the second position in the current market ranking compiled by the Mecs Study Center in the latest edition of the Cube, with a total demand for packaging technologies of more than 6500 million euros, and it is expected to confirm its position in the following years as well, thanks to an average annual growth rate of nearly 4 percent. Made in Italy exports are thus being challenged by the Chinese threat and the high degree of production self-sufficiency in the Asian market: in fact, Chinese exports of packaging machinery have grown at the expense of Italian manufacturers