JSC Volga at the International Pulp-and-Paper Exhibition in China

The Volga’s delegation, including representatives of the purchasing, sales, production and PR departments, held a series of meetings with Chinese partners supplying equipment and spare parts for paper machines, with whom they discussed technical issues and prospects for cooperation.

The exhibition attracted more than 200 exhibitors who presented printing and packaging paper, industrial and special papers, equipment, technologies and chemicals, as well as packaging at their stands. In addition to Volga, more than a thousand companies from Russia, the USA, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, India, Myanmar, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Colombia, South Africa, Kyrgyzstan, Iran and other countries visited the exhibition.

During its visit to China, the Volga’s delegation, led by Ilya Safronov, visited Chinese factories producing spare parts and “clothing” for paper machines (including the Shanghai pressed felt factory Sichuan VANOV Technical Fabrics, the plant for equipment manufacturing for pulp-and-paper industry Zhengzhou Yunda Paper Machinery, Henan Jingxin Fabric Technology's forming and drying screens factory and others).

According to Ilya Safronov, the Volga's Deputy General Manager for Procurement, this combined trip proved to be interesting and rewarding.
“We combined our visit to Guangzhou with a visit to 8 Chinese factories that we already work with or plan to work with in the future. During the meetings and talks, we discussed both the status of current contracts and the prospects for cooperation. We agreed with Zhengzhou Yunda Paper Machinery to repair refiner units RGP-60 and RGP-268, Henan Dazhi Papermaking Equipment and Engineering agreed to give a 25% discount for repairs to the calender roll on PM 8, and we discussed with Henan Jingxin Biotechnology the prospects for chemical supplies for PM 6. During a visit to Sichuan VANOV Technical Fabrics (our first Chinese partner whose press felts were successfully pilot-produced on PM 5), we agreed a significant improvement in payment terms, and also inspected the construction of a new large width felts workshop. Orders will start being accepted in December this year, and we plan to be among the first buyers of these felts for PM 8. It is worth noting that all the partners gave us a warm welcome and the negotiations were generally conducted in a constructive and friendly manner. Almost all of our wishes for better contractual conditions were taken into account and accepted.

The industry exhibition at the Poly World Trade Centre Expo in Guangzhou was not as large as we had expected, but we, nevertheless, had a number of promising meetings. It was a pleasure to note that many of the foreign exhibitors knew Volga and were looking for opportunities to meet with our delegation.