Will Indian polymer consumption achieve the projections made by the Petrochemical working committee?

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Will Indian polymer consumption achieve the projections made by the Petrochemical working ...

After a lackluster performance in the financial year 2002-2003 and despite a modest economic growth, plastics have recovered well in 2003-2004.
PP, which was one of the fastest growing polymers in the mid nineties, seems to have lost its sheen in the last 1-2 years. In 2002, PP lost some business to HDPE due to higher prices, but has currently arrested the shift. Yet the consumption of PP is expected to be only around 1150KT. LDPE seems to be having a negative growth or reached maturity. Of the Polyethylenes, only LLDPE seems to grow well. In fact, LLDPE has achieved a share of more than 60-65% of the total LD/LLDPE consumption. Only PVC capacity of 788KT seems to be lower than the expected consumption of about 850 KT in 2003. It could go up to 875KT if PVC pipes pick up in the first quarter of 2004.
PS is also being exported due to overcapacity.

The industry expects the following consumption figures for commodity plastics in 2003-2004

Polymer	Consumption in KT
PE	1550
PP	1150
PVC	875
PS	190
ABS/SAN	65
PET Bottle	70
PET Film	75
Total	3975

Polymers are expected to clock at least 9-10% growth, which is not really impressive compared to the GDP growth of 8.1%. Have polymer volumes reached a level where 15% growth seems difficult to achieve? Or have the polymer markets matured? In fact, projections of 7 million tons made by the Petrochemical working committee for 2007 seem difficult to achieve as commodity polymers have barely reached a level of about 4.0 million tons in 2003-2004.
It is expected that 2004-2005 would achieve a growth of around 10% although the projection of GDP is about 7%. Gone are the days when 14-15% overall growth was observed for plastics. India now should be happy to maintain 10% growth. At this level of growth India would attain the consumption of commodity plastics at just around 6 million tons in 2007-2008 compared to the projections of 7 million tons.

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