Labelling the future
Held on Friday 22 November in Milan, Gipea’s annual conference offered an outline of the self-adhesive label market trend at Italian and European level. Plus data from the 13th Economic Monitoring Centre and technical and legislative updates
Facing the market through cooperation: this, in a nutshell, is the message given by Stefano Salvemini (President of Gipea since June 2024) and Gregorio Gilardi, who leads the Assografici (Italian national association of graphic, paper and converting industries) Young Entrepreneurs Group, with two contributions that highlighted the role of associations and of shared actions.
According to the speakers, they are, in fact, essential tools for addressing a constantly evolving market in the context of international conflicts and the repercussions of the recent American elections, with the threat of tariffs that could affect the Italian GDP by up to 1%.
Collaboration, specialisation and innovation are, therefore, key words with which to face the new scenario.
Gipea’s Secretary, Italo Vailati, also dedicated time to legislative updating with a focus on the European Deforestation-free products Regulation (EUDR), whose coming into force appears to have been postponed to 30 December 2025. The review then referred to the 988/2023 regulation on the safety of products placed on the market and to the PPWR, regarding which the first legislative obligations will come into force from 2026 until 2040.
Focus on the economic trend
Alessandro Rigo, Head of the Assografici Study Centre and of the Paper and Graphics Federation, set out his views on the low economic growth in 2024-2025 and the effects on the paper converting and packaging sector: a GDP with low growth between 0.8% in 2024 and 0.9% in 2025. This performance is due, in particular, to the stagnation of family consumption after a 2022-2023 two-year period of strong inflation and with very limited investments and exports. In this context, the paper converting and packaging sector, which in 2023 experienced a fall in production of 5.5%, expects a rise of +3.5% in 2024 while turnover is still decreasing by 7%. In this context, self-adhesive labels were down 7.8% in 2023 but see a growth of 4.3% in 2024, exceeding the paper converting and packaging sector.
Roberto Cotterchio, Member of Gipea’s Board of Directors, focused, precisely, on the performance of the sector, presenting the data of Finat Radar, which reveal how the self-adhesive labels market in Europe experienced a more limited recovery in the third quarter of 2024 with an annual growth of 6.9%, and considered these results in the light of the economic trend and the impact of the cost of raw materials that have risen compared to 2020.
The observations of the Economic Monitoring Centre were commented by Gianluca Cinti, Founding Partner of XGen Advisory, who noted the actions taken by companies in 2023. The strategies adopted to face the various crises ranged from greater flexibility to an improvement in strategic and organisational structure, from scaling up to address global challenges, to the defence of market niches, from the maintaining of a high standard of quality to internationalization, from sustainability to governance models based on the presence of groups, financial operators and increasingly managerial-based approaches.
