Roaring growth forecast for flexible bulk packaging

29-Jun-05

The flexible bulk packaging market in USA is estimated to experience a roaring growth in the years to come. As a restrain seeps into raw materials costs, growth is estimated to lose pace from the rate of the 1999-04 period. However, a healthy outlook for the global economy and the booming economies of China and USA in particular, will propel growth in this sector. Overall economic advances will benefit from healthy outlooks for manufacturing and retail activity. US demand for flexible bulk packaging is forecast to increase 3.4% pa to US$7 billion in 2009. 60% of the total 6.2 billion pounds of raw materials used will be plastics. Packaging sector is by far the largest consumer of plastics, consuming more than 40% of plastics at about 65 million tons in 2003. Films/sheets/containers are the major plastics products that can be seen any where around the World. With almost 40% of the global population and GDP more than US$5 trillion at the purchase power parity, both India and China are becoming very important global economic centers. The flexible packaging market in these two countries alone, is growing at an average rate of 12-15%, compared to about 6% globally. Despite the large mature market of Japan, the Asian region is expected to grow between 8-10%. Products offering a combination of cost benefits and increased performance efficiency are expected to see good growth. Plastics flexible packaging is dominated by Polyolefins mainly - PE. It is estimated that PE has almost 75% share of the flexible packaging market. BOPP and cast PP films would be responsible for an additional 10-12% share. The only other commodity polymer with a decent share (almost 5-7%) is PVC.