Pressure is building on print supply chains in Russia as raw materials become harder to obtain, particularly paper and packaging substrates.
Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko has urged government departments to collaborate on measures to curb the increase in price of packaging materials. This has meant encouraging Russian producers to switch output to substitutes for imported materials. This would include label stocks which are entirely imported. The government is also urging the creation of new supply chains to overcome the sanctions imposed by many countries including the EU, US and UK.
The collaboration requires input from the ministry of industry and trade, ministry of energy, ministries of agriculture, finance and economic development. This would include preferential lending to those companies producing packaging to mitigate the steep rise in raw material costs.
At the same time the Russian Book Union has called for paper to be classified as a “strategic raw material” following a conference of publishers in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. While many mills, even foreign owned mills, are continuing to operate, supply of paper is falling.
Against this backdrop, the RosUpack and Printech exhibitions in Moscow will go ahead on 7-10 June as planned. However, overseas companies that took part in show last year, attracting more than 2,600 visitors despite Covid restrictions, will not be present.
In 2021 Heidelberg had a large area, with the likes of Xerox, Ricoh, Canon, Riso, Epson, HP, Konica Minolta, Mimaki, Duplo and Muller Martini also present either directly or through a local dealer. This year one or two of those dealers may have existing product, but there will be nothing new on show. Riso and Mimaki machines will be in action.
Organiser Sergey Ditev also points out the need to replace lost supply chains, which will be a theme in the business programme that runs alongside the exhibition. In 2021 this featured presentations from a number of European consultants.
Among the latest European companies to pull out of Russia is Condé Nast which has laid off staff and announced that it will cease publication of Vogue, GQ, Tatler and others amounting to a combined readership of 21 million. “The atrocities brought on by this unprovoked war and the related censorship laws have made it impossible for us to continue operating there,” Condé Nast chief executive Roger Lynch told staff in an email last week.
