With less than six months to go until CHINAPLAS 2017, the show's organisers are getting the message across that the next outing of the world's second-largest plastics and rubber show is going to present huge opportunities within the Asian market.
Chinaplas
China remains at the epicenter of the global plastics industry. Its domestic plastics and rubber sectors continue to experience stable growth, while benefiting from government support and from its location in the heart of Asia. Across the region, which already represents a significant percentage of the world's GDP (nearly 17 per cent), a strong middle class is emerging, along with a huge appetite for consumer goods, vehicles, housing and the like. This positions CHINAPLAS as the perfect platform for showcasing all that the polymer industries have to offer.
China's plastics industry has expanded tremendously in the past three decades. It even experienced steady growth during the past five years, while China's annual economic growth rate slowed to a 25-year low of 6.9 percent in 2015. In this "new normal", China's economy is projected to grow at an even slower rate in the coming years. But the country's economy remains massive, and some enterprises now see this as the right time for them to focus on enhancing productivity, efficiency and competitive advantages.
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On October 20th 2016 at the K 2016 fair in Düsseldorf, Stanley Chu, Chairman of Chinaplas organiser Adsale Exhibition Services delivered a forward-looking presentation titled "China's Plastics Industry Development in the Coming Five Years" at the KI Group Polymer Summit.
"China is now the No. 1 producer and consumer of plastic resins in the world," said Chu. "Its continued expansion is riding not only on the general GDP growth, but on the fact that plastics, as an advanced material, is widely used and increasing its penetration into the automotive, electrical and electronics, packaging, building, and medical industries, as well as into many other hi-tech sectors in China. This provides a favorable platform not only for further development of the plastics industry, but also for growing the scale of CHINAPLAS."
CHINAPLAS 2017 will take place in Guangzhou, and is expected to set a record in terms of its scale, reaching 250,000m sq of exhibition area. While expanding its size, the organiser also is dedicated to developing CHINAPLAS as a technology-oriented show with a focus on key topics of "Intelligent Manufacturing", "High-tech Materials" and "Green Solutions". This matches up well with the key development directions of the plastics processing industry set under the China's 13th Five-Year Plan, including developing multi-functional, high-tech materials and additives, accelerating the market share of high-end products, speed up research and development of plastics equipment as well as green, energy saving and high efficiency new processing technologies.
As for plastics machines, Chu said that while China has imported a lot of advanced technology from Europe, many major European plastics machinery suppliers have set up their production facilities in China either through wholly owned subsidiaries or through joint-venture companies. Such strategic investments underscore the increasing importance of the China market on the global stage.
Moreover, with years of development, China's plastics machinery suppliers have also geared up. In terms of volume, China has been the largest plastics machinery manufacturing country in the world for more than 10 consecutive years. Some of the country's top brands are now actively building up their overseas plants and networks to support aggressive export drives. Chinese-made machines are very popular throughout Asia. In 2015, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, India, South Korea and Malaysia were among the top 10 export markets for China's plastics machines.
Asia-Pacific represents the world's fastest-growing consumer market, and experts predicted that by 2030 this region will account for two-thirds of the global middle class and more than 40 per cent of worldwide GDP.
"The rise of the middle class in the region will generate huge demand for automobile, electronic devices and consumer goods, such as healthcare, cosmetic products and sportswear etc. which in turn will create enormous market opportunities for the plastics and rubber industries," said Chu. "Each year, 60 per cent overseas visitors of CHINAPLAS are from Asia. We believe that Asian buyers' future purchasing power will be beyond our expectations."