Now in its 23rd edition, the Vietnam International Plastics & Rubber Industry Exhibition—widely known as VietnamPlas—was held from September 17 to 20 at the Saigon Exhibition & Convention Center. The event welcomed 650 exhibitors from 20 countries and territories, occupying two exhibition halls with a total area of 22,000 square meters.
“VietnamPlas has been a great exhibition for us and our location this year is especially good as we have a lot more visitors than last year,” said Kenji Liu, project manager at Taiwanese chemical company Chu Shin Chemical. Last year was the first time it participated in this well-known trade fair, riding on its Vietnam brand APEX-VN. This year, it decided to double its booth size presence and was able to attract a lot more experienced, professional visitors.
Chu Shin has established a presence in the former province of Binh Duong since 2020 through its Vietnam branch Apex Material Industrial Vietnam (APEX-VN). The 27,000 sqm facility manufactures masterbatch, calcium chloride powder, and PVC compound.
“Many of our customers moved from Taiwan to Vietnam,” Liu said, explaining why his company set up a factory there. “We ourselves often go to Vietnam but we started doing more marketing research on the benefits of setting up a plant here. In the end, we decided that Vietnam is a good next step for us to build a factory.”
Masterbatch is a concentrated mixture of pigments or additives encapsulated in a carrier material, such as resin or wax, which is used to enhance or modify the properties of plastic products. It is commonly employed to add color (color masterbatch) or functional properties (additive masterbatch) to plastics.
It is widely used across industries such as in the plastics and packaging industry to enhance packaging and in the automotive industry to enhance plastic components in vehicle interiors and exteriors. It offers several benefits including reduced dust issues and higher accuracy in dosing small amounts of additives.
In this 2025 exhibition, the company sees many enquiries and potential from the rubber and plastics industries with potential customers from many parts of Vietnam.
Similar to that, Vietnamese firm HTL Tech, which is the Vietnamese partner to companies such as American firm Maguire, a leading manufacturer of gravimetric blenders and other plastics machinery, and Tool-Temp, a Swiss manufacturer of temperature control and cooling devices used in plastics manufacturing, believes there is much potential this year from these two industries
Gravimetric blenders are an essential device used in plastic production to precisely and accurately mix different components or materials in the manufacturing process.
David Nguyen Bao Trung, general manager at HTL Tech and the Vietnamese partner to Maguire, said: “We have got many enquiries this year, especially from potential customers from the rubber and plastics industry, and also die-casting. We also have many enquiries from the growing automotive industry and are able to offer really strong solutions like our dryers and Tool-Temp cooling devices.
“We have been participating in this exhibition every year, since 2015. We have been successful in this exhibition because we have got many visitors from all over Vietnam. They are interested in our high-end products. We are able to bring such technology to help them save energy consumption, save water and save power and ultimately to help them reduce costs.”
Trung added the company is focused on customers who make high-end, high quality products, or those who need to produce significant product volume with variations in color, dimensions and so on.
At this exhibition, the Chinese presence indeed was palpable with many firms from the mainland seeking business partners.
PowerJet, a Chinese manufacturer of injection molding machines from Guangdong Province was one such firm. A large crowd consistently gathered at its booth to discuss its machine which was producing plastic cups.
Jay Lu, vice president of PowerJet, introduced his firm: “We manufacture molding machines and have been exhibiting here for the past five years. This year in fact is better than last year partly because we brought in a larger machine.” For PowerJet, demand from the beverage industry is certainly promising.
The company has a southern presence on the outskirts of HCMC: “Many of our customers have factories located in HCMC and the former Long An Province which is good for us as our business is located between both places and that makes it more efficient for us to reach out to them.
PowerJet established an initial presence 10 years ago through local agencies, and have progressively expanded their base with growing demand. With this upward trajectory, they decided to invest more in this burgeoning market and set up an office in Vietnam five years ago.
Together with a local presence, a regular participation in this trade event has brought dividends for them. “Our goal is to further develop our presence and brand throughout the whole of Vietnam. This trade event is definitely useful for us,” Lu said.
