Chinese polymer demand continues to march ahead

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The last two decades has seen phenomenal growth of all manufacturing activities in China, leading to tremendous growth of plastics consumption. Plastics consumption in China has currently reached a level of almost 30 million tons. Commodity plastics consumption pegged at almost 27 million tons have a 90% share of the total consumption and is expected to grow at an average rate of about 10% in the next few years. With this, demand is expected to exceed 55 million tons by 2010. The demand of commodity plastics in 2003 is given below:

Capacity - Demand of commodity plastics in China - 2003
Type	Capacity (KT)	Demand (KT)
PE	4300	8800
PP	4450	6500 7000
PVC	5100	6250
PS	1050	2500
ABS	500	2250
Total	15400	26800

The major application segments that continue to thrive are:

		Agriculture film
		Packaging
		Building products like pipes/window profiles
		Automotive, consumer durable products

With the recent set up of huge capacities of BOPP as well as BOPET films, China is in a position to export these products in signifcant quantities. Currently, the market of ETP in China is pegged just above 100KT, but is expected to grow at a faster rate than the commodity plastics.

Chinese polymer consumption is nearing levels at which it will soon topple USA as the world leader in overall consumption. By 2006, China will become the highest polymer consuming nation globally