China into a global plastic market growth "power valve"

The development of the plastics industry is crucial to the growth of a country's GDP. All along, various countries have used the quantitative indicators of per capita plastic consumption to measure and reflect the economic strength of a country. Luo Baihui, secretary-general of the International Die & Hardware & Plastics Industry Suppliers Association recently stated that under the premise of China's plastics industry's stimulation of policies such as automobile going to the countryside, home appliances to the countryside, trade-in replacement, and the overall demand in the Chinese market, and the global market partially recovering, China Become the world's largest consumer of plastic industry will be the general trend.

China into a global plastic market growth "power valve"

Plastics, as a new material that is rapidly developing, has become an indispensable and important material in daily life and industrial fields after more than 100 years of development. In the wave of global low-carbon economic development, plastic will once again play an important role. Luo Baihui said that in recent years, due to the impact of the economic crisis, the traditional economic lifeline has been lacking in the European market. On the contrary, with the emergence of emerging economies such as China and India, the Asian market has shown strong development momentum in various fields. The "barometer" of the global economic market also tightened the "power valve" for the growth of the global plastics market.

In the course of the development of the global rubber and plastics industry, European rubber and plastic machinery undoubtedly played an extremely important role. Similarly, the European rubber and plastic machinery market is also very sensitive to the development of the global industry. According to Luo Baihui, in 2009, more than one-third of the presses exported from Germany were exported to Asia. VDMA Chairman of the Rubber and Plastics Machinery and Equipment Branch pointed out that in Asia, the development of different regions has different requirements for presses and equipment. At the same time, according to the report of the VDMA Plastics & Rubber Machinery Association, in 2010 China again became the top selling market for German plastics and rubber machinery. According to an industry report issued by the VDMA German Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association on May 27, 2010, the German rubber and plastics machinery manufacturing industry is expected to grow by about 11% in 2011. The report emphasized that this market growth mainly comes from external demand, especially the Chinese market. However, on September 2, 2010, Ulrich Reifenhuser, chairman of the VDMA Rubber and Plastics Machinery Manufacturers Manufacturers Association, confidently said, “No one can predict that the industry’s orders will increase by 85% in the first six months of the year. Such extraordinary performance makes people have no reason not to be optimistic. Starting from September 2009, new orders are increasing rapidly every month, and actually exceeded 100% in June 2010."

The data shows that from the outbreak of the global financial crisis to the improvement of the global market in 2010, the rapid development of the Chinese plastics processing market confirms the importance of the Chinese market. According to the statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the cumulative production of plastic products from January to October 2010 was 45.471 million tons, an increase of 20.5% year-on-year, exceeding the total output of last year. In 2009, China's plastic products industry still experienced double-digit growth year-on-year. Cumulative production from January to November 2010 reached 51.457 million tons, an increase of 20.9% from 2009. According to the data provided by the China Plastics Machinery Industry Association, in the first three quarters of 2010, the gross output value of China's plastics machinery manufacturing industry was 30.129 billion yuan, an increase of 72.93% year-on-year. Such growth was achieved in the context of Chinese injection molding machine suppliers being subject to anti-dumping in India at the beginning of the year.

At the press conference held during K2010, Bernhard Merki, current president of EUROMAP, stated that “based on the market, the demand for rubber and plastic equipment in all EU EUROMAP member countries has rapidly increased and the annual growth in 2010 will reach 10-15%.” EUROMAP Introduction The order source was mainly driven by Europe and Asia, especially the Chinese market, while the demand in the Brazilian and Mexican markets was also rapidly increasing.

China's Domestic Plastics Market Accelerates Development From the domestic market analysis, the actual production of China's PE resin in 2010 was 8.41 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 3.45%. Along with the impact of the domestic plastic limit order and the financial crisis, coupled with domestic high energy consumption and high pollution enterprises With the restriction of capacity investment, the growth rate of domestic production has started to slow down. In terms of the import situation in 2010, unlike the sharp increase in previous years, the overall trend of steady growth has been maintained. On the one hand, domestic production capacity continues to increase, and the self-sufficiency rate has been raised. On the other hand, with the continuous increase in the production costs of foreign products, the cost advantage of imported products is gradually declining, and high-quality, professional materials are still mainly dependent on imports, and the average import price is steadily rising. The domestic production capacity is growing, the supply capacity is increasing, and the degree of foreign dependence is continuously reduced. In the future, market competition will focus more on production cost control and product quality improvement.

At the same time, from the analysis of domestic demand, with the rapid development of China's economy, China's consumption growth of plastics has also accelerated development. Since 2009, the consumption of PE in China has reached more than 14 million tons. It is the world's largest consumer of PE resin. Its total consumption is 44% higher than that of the United States and 14% higher than Europe. However, from the viewpoint of per capita PE consumption, it is only 30% of the United States, and there is still great room for future development. Therefore, looking ahead, we believe that the impact of developed countries on the demand for petrochemical products will become increasingly limited. Emerging economies represented by China will become the main force in driving demand for PE resins.

In 2010, the per capita plastic consumption in China reached 46 kilograms, which more than doubled five years ago and exceeded the world average of 40 kilograms over the same period. According to industry insiders, China has become the world's largest consumer of plastics. Under strong domestic demand, the average annual growth rate of total output and total output of plastic products during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” exceeded 30%, but exports still faced challenges. It is expected that China's plastic products industry will maintain rapid development during the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period; under the inevitable trend of “plastic substitute steel” and “plastic substitute wood”, the engineering plastic product industry will maintain an average annual market of 15%. growth rate. According to the judgment of the Secretary-General of the International Model Association Luo Baihui, the highest percentage of plastic molds in the total mold will also develop at a relatively high growth rate during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period.

According to Su Dongping, the general secretary of the China Plastics Machinery Association, from January to February, China exported 861 countries and regions to 8,615 Taiwan's top 10 tax presses, including injection molding machines, plastic granulators, and plastic blow molding machines. 194.6689 million US dollars, compared with the same period last year, the number of exports and exports grew by 16%, respectively, 24%. However, in the same period, China imported a total of 1,714 taxation products for 10 tariff lines, the import amount was 334,301,300 US dollars, the import volume increased by 5%, the import amount increased by 33% year-on-year, and the trade deficit amounted to 13963.24 million US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 46%. %.

Optimistic about the market prospects of degradable plastics A chemical industry researcher said that from the perspective of the product life cycle, degradable plastics have entered the long-term from the introduction period. With the opening of the domestic market, the market will grow rapidly in the future.

According to Weng Yunxuan, Secretary General of the Degradable Plastic Specialty Committee of the China Plastics Processing Industry Association, degradable plastics include PBAT, PBS, PHBV, PLA, and others. Because traditional polyolefin plastics are difficult to degrade in nature, causing “white pollution” and many other problems, disposable packaging materials, garbage bags, and other special needs use degradable plastics.

It is estimated that if the waste bag is made of degraded plastic, it will form a market demand of 400,000 to 500,000 tons; in the fields of disposable packaging, lunch boxes, garbage bags, etc., the amount of degradable plastic can be substituted by 100 to 3 million tons; Agricultural mulch, the amount of degradable plastic will be greater. Luo Baihui, secretary-general of the International Mould and Hardware and Plastic Industry Suppliers Association, said that the opening of the domestic market for degradable plastics needs to be promoted by policies. The absence of classification of refuse is the main factor restricting the promotion of products in the domestic market. The executive meeting of the State Council held on March 23 proposed that by 2015, 50% of the district-based cities have initially achieved the classification and collection and treatment of food waste. Waste separation will inevitably involve the use of plastic bags for different types of waste, and the promotion of degradable plastics will be taken seriously at the national level. During the "two sessions" this year, CPPCC members Yang Hao also suggested that legislation be adopted to implement biodegradable plastic garbage bags, and that cities and towns implement a waste classification system. Food and kitchen waste must be packed in biodegradable plastic garbage bags that are certified and legally labeled.

Since the implementation of the plastic limit order on June 1, 2008, the prohibition of ultra-thin plastic shopping bags in China and the paid use of normal plastic shopping bags have achieved remarkable results in reducing white pollution. However, plastic limit orders are only valid in large supermarkets and shopping malls, while plastic bags are still widely used in farmers' markets, restaurants, and hotels. Some ordinary people buy ultra-thin trash bags to hold rubbish, and even turn to free roll bags for fruit and vegetables. More than 50% of urban garbage is food waste. If this part of the waste is left unattended, there will be problems such as illegal use of “traffic oil” for recycling and “garbage” for feed. If it is burned, it will cause cancer. Substance dioxins; if they are buried, they cannot control the fermentation and pollute the air and groundwater. Luo Baihui said that the classification and recycling of waste is an international trend. The best way to recycle the kitchen waste is composting or biogasification. If a traditional polyolefin plastic garbage bag is used to contain the kitchen waste, the composting process will be difficult to implement smoothly because the plastic bag cannot be biodegraded, and the composting quality will be degraded. The use of bio-powder trash bags is the optimal and inevitable choice.

The use of degradable plastics is gaining local attention. According to Luo Baihui, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hainan and other places have been piloting garbage classification. Xinjiang, Northeast China, and Yunnan are still piloting the use of biodegradable agricultural plastic film. Yunnan will also legislate to prohibit the production and sale of plastic shopping bags. The relevant draft has been announced.

Taken together, new capacity in 2011 may only come from technological transformation of some existing equipment. In terms of demand, although the rapid growth phase of China's plastic consumption has passed, but in the context of urbanization and expanding domestic demand, the demand for biodegradable plastics is huge, which will lead to a considerable gap in supply and demand in 2011.