China plastics demand growth to be stable in 2008

16 April 2008 03:53  [Source: ICIS news]

By Chow Bee Lin

SHANGHAI (ICIS news)--China’s plastics demand is expected to show stable growth this year as activities relating to the Beijing Olympic Games drive local consumption, and the environmental friendly plastics sector presents new business opportunities,  a senior industry official said on Wednesday.

Polypropylene (PP) demand growth is  expected to continue last year’s trend of exceeding that of polyethylene (PE), and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) consumption to again register double digit growth this year, Liao Zhenpin, China Plastics Processing Industry Association’s (CPPIA) chairman, said.

He was speaking at the one-day China-US Plastics Industry Summit which opened in Shanghai on Wednesday.

China’s PP and ABS demand grew by 15.84% and 13.5% respectively to 10.16m tonnes and 3.7m tonnes last year, while PE consumption rose by 4.85%, he noted.

“ABS application is gradually shifting from the large electrical appliances to the small electrical appliances, office equipment and automotive sectors,” he said.

He added that leisure products such as yacht and mobile houses, pipe and pipe casting, medical devices and alloy blends were also providing new outlets for ABS resins.

The country’s PP industry would enter a new round of investments in the coming years with 6m tonnes of new capacities due to come on stream in succession, of which 65% would be accounted for by local majors Sinopec and Petrochina, he said.

China’s polyvinyl chloride consumption was expected to increase by 40% this year to 14m tonnes, from last year’s 10m tonnes, and the quantity of plastics additives used in PVC products would increase to 2.3m tonnes, about 15% higher from last year, he added.

Due to new local capacity expansions, China’s synthetic resin imports are likely to fall further this year, said Liao. China’s synthetic resins imports accounted for 41.4% of its 45.78m tonnes of total consumption last year, about 6.3% lower from 2006, he said.

Amid consistent growth, the plastics industry needs to focus more on environmental issues.

Issues such as China’s ban on using polystyrene in disposable food containers in 1999, and the new policy which bans the production of plastic bags thinner than 0.025mm and the free distribution of plastic bags from 1 June, indicates the government’s increasing emphasis on environmental protection, said Liao.

Liao said he believed that public awareness of plastics recycling was crucial to ensuring the sustained growth of China’s plastics industry, as the lack of such awareness would eventually lead to more restrictions being imposed on plastics applications.

“The industry needs to popularise the concept that plastic is not to be blamed and the ultimate solution to white pollution lies in recycling,” said Liao.

By: Chow Bee Lin
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