Wang Mengdi, Sublime China Information

Biaxially oriented nylon (BOPA) film is mainly used in fields like food, daily necessities, and lithium battery packaging. The growth and upgrading of these sectors pushed China’s BOPA to expand from 2016 to 2020. Such trend will continue in the next 5 years, leaving the industry a bright future.

China’s BOPA industry development analysis

Supply: capacity and output grow every year

China is a major BOPA film producer in the world. Its BOPA film design capacity expanded from 136 500 t/a to 249 300 t/a from 2016 to 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of 16.26%, as shown in Chart 1.

Chart 1 China’s BOPA capacities, 2016-2020

With high operating rates, China’s outputs of BOPA film have also increased accordingly. The production during 2016 to 2020 went up from 124 800 tons to 207 500 tons, with a compound annual growth rate of 13.56%, as shown in Chart 2.

Chart 2 China’s BOPA outputs, 2016-2020

Demand: more applications and larger scale

China has a large population. With the continuous and stable development of the national economy and hence the consumption ability, people’s requirements for food packaging in terms of freshness, appearance, greenness, portability and cleanliness have enhanced. Meanwhile, with the accelerated pace of social life, the rapid development of prepared food and fast food has stimulated the demand for functional packaging materials such as BOPA. In addition, China is now enjoying a rapid development of new energy vehicles, thus witnessing the market scale of lithium-ion soft pack batteries rising, which drives the demand for BOPA films too.

Through 2016 to 2020, China's BOPA film market size grew from 104 500 tons to 173 600 tons, with a compound annual growth rate of 13.53%, significantly higher than the global growth of the same period, as shown in Chart 3.

Chart 3 China’s BOPA film market size, 2016-2020

China’s BOPA film market forecast

     China has a huge domestic market. Chart 4 shows the forecast of China's BOPA film market size from 2021 to 2025. Thanks to the continuous improvement of people’s consumption ability, the upgrading of packaging and rapid development of emerging industries, the BOPA industry in China is expecting a high CAGR growth of 11.90%, from 197 000 tons in 2021 to 304 500 tons in 2025. The prospect is bright. 

Chart 4 China’s BOPA film market size forecast, 2021-2025