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At the moment when China's exports are recovering, plastic products, which showed a downward trend in 2023, turned from negative to positive, and have maintained a relatively fast and stable growth this year. Customs data showed that in the first seven months of this year, in terms of US dollars, unlike the decline in labor-intensive industries such as clothing, luggage, shoes and boots, and ceramics during the same period, plastic product exports increased by 7.2% year-on-year.

What is the reason for the growth against the trend?

From the intuitive feeling of industry insiders, the overall demand of the global plastics industry is still sluggish this year, and there is no obvious momentum for recovery. In fact, the continuous decline in the price of plastic raw materials has also proved the relative lack of demand to a certain extent. However, with the acceleration of the global layout of China's plastics manufacturing industry and the clear implementation of relevant legislation on the use of recycled plastics in Europe and the United States, there is no lack of new changes and opportunities in the export trend of plastic products. A large number of flexible and adaptable small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises are also striving to capture global business opportunities in innovation and transformation.
Global layout and recycling business opportunities

"The export of plastic products to Southeast Asia should increase significantly this year." Jiang Nanqing, director of the Qinghe Circular Economy and Carbon Neutrality Research Institute, told Caixin that the main global plastic production capacity is still in China. With the accumulation of time, the overall use and production capacity of plastics are increasing. "For example, in the current new energy vehicle industry, most of the batteries are plastic products, which will also increase with the development of automobile production." On this basis, considering the supporting industrial chain, tariffs and costs, China's plastic manufacturing industry has accelerated its global layout in recent years, and the capacity spillover effect has also increased exports to Southeast Asia and other places.

According to public information, the General Administration of Customs' plastic products include polymers in primary shapes, waste and scraps, semi-finished products and finished products. There are many types of plastic products, including but not limited to plastic bags, plastic containers, plastic films, plastic pipes and plastic sheets, which are widely used in food packaging, cosmetic packaging, pharmaceutical packaging, building drainage, power communications and other fields.
Jiang Nanqing pointed out that chemical fiber products such as polyester and spandex, which are widely used in the clothing industry, are also plastic products. The production of these products in China ranks first in the world, and on this basis, a recycled chemical fiber industry has been developed. In recent years, many Chinese companies have set their sights on Southeast Asia and other places to build a more global market and a larger supply chain of plastic recycling equipment and raw materials. More and more companies no longer rely on pure export trade, but have formed deeper exchanges and cooperation on the supply chain side between regions, trying to grasp their own advantages in the fields of raw materials, intermediate products and finished products.

At the same time, Chinese plastic daily necessities companies that originally focused on the domestic or European and American markets are also stepping up efforts to explore emerging markets.

According to data released by Xiamen Customs in July, as a traditional plastic product production province, many household daily necessities, plastic packaging materials and other processing and manufacturing companies in Fujian are striding towards the international market. In the first five months of this year, Fujian Province exported 21.44 billion yuan of plastic products, a year-on-year increase of 41.5%, and the export value ranked fifth in the country. Among them, ASEAN, as the largest export market for Fujian's plastic products, increased by 102.9% year-on-year, accounting for 39% of the total export value of Fujian's plastic products during the same period; during the same period, exports to the United States and the European Union increased by 9.5% and 20% respectively; exports to countries jointly building the "Belt and Road" increased by 66.1% year-on-year.

Fan Yushun, executive vice president of the Plastic Recycling Committee of the China Plastics Association, is also an entrepreneur in the plastics industry. During the epidemic, he closed his domestic factory and went to Japan to establish a special plastics factory. He told China Business News that since China banned the import of foreign garbage in 2018, most companies in the industry have accelerated their pace of "going out". With the penetration of sustainable concepts in the international consumer market and the clear implementation of legislation on the use of recycled plastics in Europe and the United States, plastic products with a certain proportion of recycled materials have great development prospects. He started to lay out last year, and this year the export of such plastic products with recycled materials to Europe and the United States has increased significantly. The plastic raw materials needed by overseas factories are still mainly exported from China.
In Jiang Nanqing's view, at present, the core plastic recycling technology and mature workers are still mainly in China, and this part is "difficult to transfer out". This also means that the purchasing demand for Chinese plastic manufacturing in Southeast Asia and "Belt and Road" co-construction countries will continue to increase.