President address at the 89th IBHA AGM

Dear Members,

I extend a warm welcome to you and thank you for participating in the 89th Annual General Meeting of your Industry Association – IBHA!
I would like to share some highlights about our market and our Industry:

Our industry size for the year 2022-23 has been estimated to be 112,000 Crores ( 13.5 Billion USD) with a growth of over 10% versus the previous year , and well ahead of the GDP growth rate of 7%.

GDP growth is forecasted at 6-7% making India the fastest growing G-20 economy, this growth is sustainable thanks to the boost in the manufacturing sector that adds the second pillar to the legacy sector of services.

The resultant increase in working age population, and the rise in their disposable incomes is a big macro-opportunity for our Industry.

More significantly, we recently observed a huge behavioural change in society, traditional multi-generational households are in decline – only 37% urban Indians now live with extended family and the nucleus family is moving away from only savings and showing an appetite for consumer debt. There are recent changes in their spending priorities; towards multiple holiday travel, towards fashion, accessories and personal care. And this is only the beginning.
Our industry is well poised to satisfy this new demand from increasingly curious and well-informed consumers so as to supply them high quality products and services that are efficacious and safe to use.

IBHA Activities and New Initiatives
During the year all the committees performed their tasks with great thoroughness and collaboration.
On the side of the regulatory authorities we have faced big personnel changes that slowed down outcomes in the first half. However, we have very encouraging news most recently and that will benefit our Industry tremendously. But I will leave the committee chairs to share them with you later in the meeting.

With regard to our new Initiative of establishing thought leadership through a sustained digital presence and with the full support of our executive committee, I am pleased to state that firstly we built a modern new website armed with relevant content – since its launch in February we receive 300 page views per week and this will be boosted further.
Secondly, during mid-May we launched our Linked In page, averaging 6-10 posts per month and receiving 3.5 Lakh views so far and generating 1200 followers in 3.5 months.

Recent video content from Industry leaders is in the pipeline for posting.
Another significant new initiative is the IBHA-Ipsos Pan India Consumer study that we have just concluded with the objective of gaining first hand feedback on what content they want and what they don’t want to see on pack .
Lastly, we want to build an export services capability that goes hand in hand with the governments priority of Make in India for the world.

Acknowledgments
I wish to place on record my sincere thanks to all the committees that run IBHA and finally to our Secretary General for ensuring that all our priorities are met.
Thank you!