The Asian plastics market will grow rapidly in the future

Reduced costs attract more consumption

JPNah, Asia's polyolefin business manager at IHS Chemicals, said that the drop in crude oil prices has led to lower production costs for plastic resins. In the past year, the market price of raw naphtha has plummeted by nearly 50%, and the price of crude oil has also dropped by nearly 50%. In addition, Andrew LeeFagg, head of Nexant Asia, also pointed out that countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam are in terms of per capita consumption of polyolefins. There is strong growth potential because these countries have low starting points and demand is slowly growing.

Lower plastic prices not only encourage consumption, but also switch other products made from metal/glass/paper to plastic. 'Andrew Lee Fagg added that this transformation certainly takes time and requires a lot of investment in research and development. But he said he knows that a company is considering replacing its products from glass bottles into plastic bottles.

China online shopping boosts plastic consumption

Vince, Asia Chemicals Manager, Wood Mackenzie. Sinclair said: 'The demand for plastic film will be boosted by the explosive growth of China's e-commerce - we call it the 'Alibaba effect', because almost all of these online shopping packages use plastic packaging. 'Although the overall market for China's commodity market is not optimistic, the PE resin market is particularly good. 'IHS Chemical expects that China's PE resin imports will continue to increase next year, which is expected to reach 10 million tons this year and will increase to more than 11 million tons in 2016. In 2014, the import volume was 9.5 million tons.

Industry insiders pointed out that despite the slowdown in China’s economic growth, from the staggering double-digit growth rate of the past few decades to about 7% this year, China is trying to shift its growth mode and reduce its excessive dependence on investment and exports. Expand domestic consumption. This makes the demand for plastic products in the Chinese market still in the growth channel.

Demand growth, exporters benefit

Overall, the growth rate of PE resin consumption in Northeast Asia is expected to remain around 6% in 2016, which is roughly the same as the average growth rate from 2010 to 2015, but the growth rate of PE resin consumption demand in Southeast Asia may reach 5% or more next year. The region's demand growth rate from 2010 to 2015 is less than 5%.