Interview with the director of Equiplast, the International Plastics and Rubber Event

From 2 to 6 October 2017, the Gran Via Exhibition Centre will host the 18th edition of Equiplast, the International Plastics and Rubber Event. In this interview, Pilar Navarro, the event's director, explains the goals pursued by the edition, which will be held in October next year, and the new sections it will feature.

In 2017, Equiplast will hold its 18th edition. Can you give us a preview of what is planned for this new edition of Spain's leading event for the plastics and rubber industry?

We're just over a year away from Equiplast, which will be held punctually as ever, three years after the last edition.

As soon as the 2014 edition was closed, we started working on designing an exhibition that we want to be genuinely useful to Spain's plastics and rubber industry. So we will once again offer our exhibitors the WICAP formula (World, Investment, Cooperation and Innovation Lab, Application Forum and Project Forum), with the goal of increasing their international visibility and the possibilities of gaining access to new business opportunities abroad.

What will be the main activities at the next Equiplast?

As well as being the place where the industry's companies present their latest products and services, Equiplast offers an extensive programme of technical seminars organised by the industry's leading associations and organisations. We also want to give greater prominence to an initiative that we started in the previous edition and which did very well, the Plastics Processors Show. In cooperation with the Spanish Plastics Centre (CEP), we will once again invite subcontracted plastic parts manufacturers to take part in Equiplast, which will give significant added value to the event's commercial offering. We are offering substantial advantages to these companies so that they can exhibit at Equiplast 2017. In fact, machinery and process demonstrations will take centre court at the Gran Via Exhibition Centre.

What sectors will make up the commercial offering of Equiplast 2017?

Equiplast will once again be attended by the industry's top companies, from raw materials and additives, machinery, equipment and automated systems to moulds and dies, and including semi-finished and finished products. In short, Equiplast will offer a very representative sample of an industry that holds key importance for the Spanish economy. In this respect, Equiplast seeks to show just how important this industry and its products are for today's wellbeing to offset the campaigns that, for some time now, have been attacking the industry.

Since 1987, Equiplast is held jointly with Expoquimia and Equiplast… What impact does the fact that it is held simultaneously with these two events have on the exhibition?

The very obvious synergies that exist between these three sectors show that holding simultaneously exhibitions that specifically target their respective businesses is the most effective formula for exhibiting companies. We are convinced that this simultaneity opens more and better business opportunities and new contacts, an essential quality in the current context of an increasingly globalised, cross-cutting market.