A plastics conference in Taizhou last month revealed some interesting statistics on China's plastics resin sector.
According to speakers quoted by a Xinhua report, China produced 69.5 million tons of synthetic resins in 2014, rising 14 percent from the previous year. That production increase is almost twice China's 2014 GDP growth — 7.3 percent.
Resin sales came in at 852.3 billion yuan ($134.5 billion), which represented a 6.7 percent increase from the previous year. This number is more in line with the GDP growth rate. However, it might not be a good comparison considering falling resin prices.
In volume terms, consumption grew by 6 percent during the same period, and experts predict the sector will expand by about 6 percent again this year.
Data also show that there are a total of 1,690 industry players with annual resin sales of 20 million yuan ($3.2 million) or more. The top 10 companies make up for just 18.7 percent of total output, indicating a fragmented industry with smaller players.
Imports of resin into China grew 2.9 percent to 32.2 million tons in 2014, which represented a third of the nation's annual apparent consumption. The top four importers are South Korea (4.5 million tons), Taiwan (3.8 million tons), Saudi Arabia (2.6 million tons) and Japan (2.4 million tons).
Exports from China in the same period jumped 22.6 percent to 5.1 million tons, with the top destinations being India, Hong Kong, Russia and the United States.