APCS 2007 draws record number of visitors.

A record number of visitors, representing 48 countries, attended the Asia Pacific Coatings Show 2007 (APCS), held at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre in Thailand from June 6-8.

The APCS 2007 Exhibition was opened by the deputy minister of industry, Piyabutre Cholvichan. Highlights included the conference, exhibitor business presentations and the 7th APCS Awards ceremony.

The Asia Pacific Coatings Conference, organized by CoRI (Coatings Research Institute) and UK-based The Coatings Group, opened at lunchtime on the first day and ran the full second day. The technical papers presented were organized under the theme of "Novel Concepts and Materials within Organic Coatings."

"This year many papers showed concerns for environmental issues," said Dr. Marcel Piens from conference organizers, CoRI. "Many papers also covered innovation in the fields of nanotechnology, UV, smart coatings and high performance additives."

"The conference is very valuable and helps visitors to keep up to date with developments in the market," added Suchart Teinpothong, president of the TPMA.

The 7th APCS Awards were held at the JW Marriott. The winners were: Most Innovative Product BYK-Chemie; Environmental Award--Buhler; Best Conference Paper Award--Tinh Nguyen of National Institute of Standards and Techonology for his paper, "A novel method to covalently functionalize carbon nanofillers with isocyanate for polyurethane nanocomposite coatings; Best Marketing Campaign Award--Arch Biocides; Best Purpose-Built Stand Award--Ciba Specialty Chemicals; and Best Shell Scheme Stand Award--Rockwood Pigments.

"APCS 2007 has built on the success of its preceding year in Malaysia and delivered another record turnout," commented David Roberts, group sales director of The Coatings Group, drag world media. "What was particularly satisfying was the geographic spread of the visitors with 48 countries, and all four continents of the world represented. While the home country will always formulate the majority of the attendance, this year's show continued to demonstrate a very high proporation of visitors from the other ASEAN countries such as India, The Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Next year's show, APCS 2008, will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from June 24-26.