China - the global driver for all polymers in the last decade, continues to show good growth for all polymer processed products. China, with a consumption of 1.7 million ton of BOPP in 2006, out of the global consumption of 6.8 million tons, is a great market for BOPP
A major portion of BOPP film consumption (1.2-1.3 million ton) was for plain packaging film. Adhesive tape market is a distinct second with almost 200,000 tpa consumption. Pearlized film was consumed at about 150,000 tpa, Cigarette packaging film was consumed at about 100,000 tpa, while metallized film was about 40,000 tpa. The balance 100,000 tpa was for special applications such as capacitor film.
Local production of BOPP film started in China in 1979- initially at a slow growth pace. However, the last 5-10 years have seen a stupendous growth of capacity additions. In fact the largest production capacity per plant at almost 25-30,000 tpa has recently come onstream in China. It is expected that BOPP film in China will have an average growth of 13-15% for the next 5 years- from 2006 until 2011 at least.
Most of the growth is taking place in general purpose packaging film, along with some developments in special applications. New capacity of BOPP paper and capacitor film has recently come onstream. These two along with barrier film in the form of metallized film are some of the key growth areas of BOPP.