Last meetings before the holidays
At the beginning of my last week in the UAE, I drive to the packaging and mould manufacturer Precision Group. The plant is not far from Downtown Dubai. The new GM Sajeed Abdul Lathief, who has just taken over from David Swan, who recently went into well-deserved retirement, is waiting for me on site. Mr Lathief was previously the deputy. The company designs and builds moulds and mould parts for a wide range of applications and also produces packaging of all kinds using injection moulding, extrusion and thermoforming. The majority of the containers are intended for the food industry. Around 30 Nissei ASB machines are in operation within the company. I learn that the Precision Group has three sites in the UAE, two of which I visit with Mr Lathief in the same industrial area. A fourth production facility opened a year ago in Saudi Arabia and is a response to demand there, but also a strategic location for exports, I learn.
After returning to my flat and doing some paperwork, I am again on the road, this time to Jumeirah, where I spontaneously meet the team from machine manufacturer Demark in China who are in town. Jason Xue, GM for injection moulding, Mehdi Badeleh, the local representative for the area, and a new young colleague have chosen an Iraqi restaurant where we soon find ourselves discussing all sorts of interesting topics from the PET industry over fish and lamb.
It’s Tuesday morning and I’m in a bit of a holding pattern because I haven’t heard anything more about my appointment with Creative Propack Plastics today and we hadn’t yet agreed a fixed time. Fine, I’ll just write reports then, I think to myself, until I find out that the person in charge had given birth to a daughter the night before, so everything is a bit chaotic at the moment. I congratulate them warmly and we agree to reschedule the interview at short notice. So, contrary to expectations, I have more time to deal with typical editor stuff in a meaningful way and in the end I’m quite happy that I manage to finish some of the material before the holidays.
One day later, I have my last meeting for the time being with the plastics raw materials distributor Shad Polymers, which has its office in Dubai. My colleague Heike Fischer had already interviewed MD Girish Wadwhani in the middle of the year at the Plastics Recycling World Expo in Essen and we had agreed to meet again later in Dubai to take stock of the current situation. In addition to virgin material, the office also handles the supply of rPET, which is sourced from a Erema recycling line of the Polysmart Group in Nigeria. In conversation with him, I find out what the current situation is regarding rPET versus vPET, what customers’ expectations are and where he thinks the markets are heading.
And with this last appointment for the time being, my three-week trip to the Emirates ends almost on time for the Christmas holidays. And before I set off on my return journey to Vienna, I would like to wish you, dear readers, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2024.
The next Middle East tour destination will soon be Saudi Arabia.
See you soon and best wishes,
Kay Barton
