According to the participants’ estimates, the Third Watermark Conference, which took place on 23-25 June in Kazan is the most successful over its history. The highly topical conference programme blended well with ample opportunities for rest and the excellent infrastructure of the Korston hotel complex which specializes in holding large-scale forums made the conference participants’ stay in Kazan maximally comfortable.
236 participants from 25 countries arrived in Kazan, in spite of the world financial crisis, which made many companies to change their plans for conference-exhibition activities.
For the third time Goznak became the General Sponsor of the Watermark Conference. The Honourable Sponsors were also traditional: KBA-GIORI and SICPA (both companies from Switzerland) supported the first conference in St. Petersburg and the second in Suzdal. Among the conference’ sponsors were the leading enterprises in the security printing industry: Gleitsmann Security Inks (Germany), Drent Goebel (the Netherlands), Petrel (France), Leonhard KURZ (Germany), OVD Kinegram (Switzerland), Double V (Russia), Krypten, HoloGrate (Russia), EAST Industry Engineering Company (Russia), Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga-Security Papers (Russia).
This time there was the opportunity to extend the exhibition area and in the exhibition, which accompanied the conference, except the sponsors the following companies took part: Lodvila (Lithuania), Madras Security Printers (India) and The Department of State Marks of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Belarus.
During two days of the conference sessions the participants made 24 presentations, which discussed all the issues of present interest for the industry. These are the modern technologies for banknote production; fighting counterfeiting and authentication technologies; ID-documents and RFID; equipment, materials and security technologies; instrumental quality control and identification of security products.
But each conference (especially Watermark Conference) consists not only of presentations. The conference programme includes also meetings, communication at the exhibition booths and new contacts. All these were in Kazan.
Besides there was an intensive cultural programme – the welcome cocktail reception in the Kazan city hall (former Noble Assembly) and the gala dinner in one of the best restaurants in Kazan. And certainly during the tour of Kazan all the participants had an opportunity to visit the well-known Kremlin of Kazan.
