Dear Members,

I would like to offer my most sincere thanks for electing me as FCBM President. FCBM has made me immensely responsible for our members' well-being. I am conscious of the very high honour bestowed on me and will do my best to fulfil all expectations and duties of this august post.

The Federation of Corrugated Box Manufacturers (FCBM) of India is a leading & vibrant organisation. Over the last five decades, FCBM has rendered yeoman's service for betterment of its members and promotion of Corrugated Box usage & the corrugation industry. Throughout our great history of 50 long years, my predecessors have toiled hard to make it one of the premier trade associations in the country. They have given us high ideals and shone light on the path to greater heights. I will do my humble best to follow in their footsteps.

My vision starts with strengthening our hands with more members. By the most conservative estimates, there are about 15000 big and small corrugated manufacturing units in our country. Our membership hovers at about 2500. I have revived the Membership Drive committee this year and the committee will brainstorm ideas to get more of our brethren into the Federation.

I firmly believe "The Future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine in the creative ways". Hence, we will be planning training programs including topics like right costing for better profits, business automation, management programs, industry best practices, all tuned to build healthy eco-system for semi-automatic plants business. We will also be addressing a major gap in our industry – trained manpower. We are planning an all-India Incubation and Training centre, which would definitely cater to the issue. We want to bring awareness of MSME schemes from central government and its updates for our members' benefit. Additionally, an international grade exhibition in India for our industry will be planned.

India's economy is growing gradually but consistently. The Gross domestic product (GDP) had grown 8.7% in FY22, boosted by the pandemic-induced low base of FY21. India's economy is likely to grow 7% in the current fiscal year. Taking advantage as well as contributing our own bit as the Indian Corrugated Packaging Industry to the Indian Economy, we must turn to innovation, technical efficiency and quality consciousness to help our business flourish.

We as industry stakeholders are aware of multiple challenges that we all face, coming together and standing united will surely help us overcome those challenges over time. FCBM has been striving continuously for long to create new bridges with not only our customers but also suppliers. At the association level, FCBM has been working on the issues of quality & standardization of paper supplies for over 30 years. There has been considerable improvement in some parameters with a lot still to be achieved.

In my tenure I wish to use every single minute of mine for betterment and holistic growth of our members benefiting our federation and our nation at large.

JAI HIND!
DHARMENDRA V. PANDYA
PRESIDENT