Page 9 - ITA_30th_WEB

Past, Present & Future – 30 years of the International Tube Association 7
From the very beginning the ITA had attracted members
worldwide and this process was boosted further in
several ways through the 1990s.
The establishment of an Indian Management Board
(IMB) in 1994, chaired by Deepak Jindal, led to a marked
increase in ITA influence in the sub continent and
memberships in India remain the highest regional total
to this very day.
In 1999 Jintras (India) Ltd became the official
representative office of the association in India.
It had become increasingly obvious that the so called
‘tiger economies’ of the Far East were very important
developing markets for the industry and in 1997 the
ITA supported and sponsored the first Tube Singapore
exhibition, which ran there biennially until 2005 before
re-locating to Bangkok in 2007 as Tube Southeast Asia.
The ITA has continued to sponsor the event since 1997
and to organise supporting technical conferences at
some editions.
Another consequence of the dramatic development in
the Far East was the need to oversee and co-ordinate
the ITA’s interests in the region and so the Asia Pacific
Management Board (APMB) was formed in 1998.
The APMB has been chaired by Tsutomo Nakata since
its formation and has included board members from
Japan, Australia, Thailand, Korea, China, Malaysia and
Indonesia.
Increasingly
International
An early version of the ITA membership
brochure, printed in seven languages