By Zheng Kai, President of China Synthetic Resin Association

Synthetic resin industry will enter a period of rapid growth

The 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) is a critical period for the transformation and development of China's chemical industry, and the economic operation and benefit of petrochemical industry will continue to improve. The technological transformation and intelligent upgrade of many chemical companies in the traditional field will achieve high-end and differentiated development by extending the industrial chain.

In recent years, with the prosperity and development of China's economy and infrastructure, coupled with the continuous upgrading of the industry's traditional product structure, the domestic market is not only huge in scale, but also has strong resilience. The sales volume of China's petrochemical industry has accounted for 40% of the global market, and the space for production capacity cooperation among international communities is also expanding. These factors will strongly stimulate market demand for energy, new chemical materials, and electronic chemicals, also will drive the vigorous development of related supporting industries.

Now, China regards the development and expansion of new-generation information technology, new materials and other strategic emerging industries, and high-performance synthetic resins as the basis for advanced manufacturing. It is required to break through the bottleneck of high-performance synthetic resin technology as soon as possible and upgrade the existing material system to meet the needs of major projects and high-end manufacturing. Therefore, under the situation of accelerating the conversion of new and old drivers, the development of high-performance synthetic resin will become an important measure for petrochemical industry to adjust structure, change mode, and promote industrial transformation and upgrading.

From this perspective, China's synthetic resin industry will usher in a period of rapid growth in the next few years. Therefore, enterprises must make preparations in advance and seize this window period to speed up self-improvement. There is still a large gap between China and developed countries of the United States, Europe and Japan in the strength of synthetic resin industry. In order to completely turn the tide, firstly, we need to cultivate a group of world-class enterprises and petrochemical bases with global competitiveness, actively adopt new technologies, new processes, and new equipment, strive to improve the existing production process and product level, and promote the reduction of material consumption and energy consumption, accelerate the improvement of quality and efficiency through technological progress, and comprehensively enhance the modern management level and core competitiveness of the enterprise. At the same time, it is necessary to build a petrochemical park in accordance with the requirements of scientific planning, rational layout, industrial coordination, and standardized management, take intelligent parks and green parks as important starting points, and speed up the goal of becoming a world-class petrochemical industrial base.

Unprecedented challenges and tests

At present, the world economy is showing a trend of slow growth, but economic globalization has encountered headwinds, protectionism and unilateralism have risen, the world economy is still in the downturn, and international trade and investment have shrunk sharply.

During this period, the operation of China's synthetic resin industry was greatly affected by the economic situation. The plastic industry chain, supply chain and value chain established under the globalization system faced unprecedented challenges and tests, and the global plastics industry was still facing a tough situation. On the other hand, starting from 2023, the Plastic Restriction Order will be imminent to extend the scope, and some new plastic restriction policies will also be promoted one after another, and the scope will be further expanded.

The above factors will undoubtedly cast a shadow over the fast-growing plastics industry and the ongoing or planned large-scale resin capacity expansion projects. In addition, in the context of increasing calls for the collection of plastic use tax and packaging tax, the policy of mandating the addition of recycled materials to plastic products will definitely be introduced. At that time, recycled amount will be as high as 20% to 30%, and the efficiency and effectiveness of new synthetic resin production capacity will become extremely low. Attention must be paid to such predictions. Because in addition to the existing 12 sets of large-scale refining and chemical integration projects under construction, there are also some similar projects under planning. Therefore, it is recommended that those companies that are going to continue to launch large-scale polymerization devices should carefully analyze the market and seriously consider how to deal with the future market situation.

Green development becomes core competitiveness

In the future, China will inevitably continue to promote green technology and green products, promote the construction of green factories and green supply chains, accelerate the development of circular economy, improve the efficiency of energy resource utilization, strengthen the treatment and comprehensive utilization of three wastes (waste water, gas and solid waste), pay attention to process safety management, and improve the level of essential safety, promote the synergy between industrial development and ecological environment protection, further improve the industry's resource and energy utilization efficiency and clean production level, reduce energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, and water consumption per unit of industrial added value, and greatly accelerate green and low-carbon development.

The next five years are critical

Now, the world has entered the post-pandemic era, and the situation is unpredictable. Regarding to how to deal with this once-in-a-century era of great change, we are all facing with the influence of many uncertain factors. Therefore, the next five years will be a critical period for China's industry to consolidate its foundation and resume its strengths and establish a comparative advantage in international competition. It is also a critical period for China's synthetic resin industry to turn to independent innovation and accumulate new technological advantages, also a critical period for exploring new models of coordinated development of regions and green development.

This is an era full of dreams and opportunities. The internal contradictions accumulated in the scientific and technological knowledge system have become prominent, and new major breakthroughs are urgently needed. Disruptive technologies will emerge in large numbers, and traditional industrial and management systems may fade out of people's sight. The manufacturing industry will enter a new mode of transformation to intelligence, and the harbingers of revolutionary breakthroughs in some important scientific issues and key technologies are also emerging. It is a way to increase productivity and competitiveness in the context of smart manufacturing. Under the new situation, if enterprises want to survive and develop, they must learn to change their thinking and abandon traditional concepts, improve efficiency, enhance rapid reaction capabilities, and make comprehensive improvements in management, technology, service, and market. And it is necessary to work hard to complete the mutual integration between the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, and actively participate in the international division of labor and cooperation. It will be a matter of life and death for every enterprise whether a breakthrough can be achieved or not.