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While the unpredictable target market creates opportunities for the development of domestic plastics companies, it also poses new challenges to corporate technological innovation. China Plastics.com believes that, driven by the downstream market, the prosperity and development of modified plastics is just around the corner.

In the past 10 years, the output value of the world's materials industry has grown at an annual rate of about 30%. New chemical materials, microelectronics, optoelectronics, and new energy have become the most active, fastest-growing, and most promising new material fields for investors. Innovation has become one of the important driving forces for the advancement of human civilization, and it has also promoted the development of technology and the upgrading of industries.

As the main component of the new material industry, new chemical materials are a new field with more vitality and development potential in the chemical industry. Modified plastics, as a kind of new chemical materials, have expanded their production capacity rapidly in recent years. However, it has not fully met the domestic market demand after a certain scale of development. In the future, my country's modified plastics industry still has a large room for development.

A new force in the plastics industry

Modified plastics are intermediate products in the petrochemical industry chain, mainly composed of five general plastics PE, PP, PVC, PS, ABS and five engineering plastics PC, PA, PET or PBT, PPO, and POM. Flame retardant, impact resistance, high toughness, easy processing and other characteristics.

Modified plastics are typical industries that benefit from technological progress and consumption upgrades. The largest downstream consumption of modified plastics is the home appliance industry and the automotive industry. The combined consumption of the two accounts for more than 50% of the overall consumption capacity of modified plastics. According to statistics, the average usage of modified plastics in color TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines is between 1.5kg-2.5kg.

As the global production capacity of home appliances, computers, power tools and toys accelerates to transfer to my country, my country is gradually becoming the largest potential market and main demand growth driver for modified plastics in the world.

After more than 20 years of development, my country’s modified plastics industry has formed a production capacity of millions of tons of filler masterbatches, various functional masterbatches and modified special plastics. Technology and industry have become one of the most active and promising areas, making outstanding contributions to the sustained and rapid development of my country's plastics industry and the development of the entire national economy.

The "2011-2015 China Modified Plastics Industry Production and Sales Demand and Investment Forecast Analysis Report 2012 Edition" of the Prospective Industry Research Institute shows: In recent years, China's modified plastics industry has continued to maintain rapid development along with the development of the national economy. Plastic production also increased from 320,000 tons in 2000 to 3.4 million tons in 2008, with a compound annual growth rate of 34.37%. Apparent consumption rose from 720,000 tons in 2000 to 3.92 million tons in 2008, a compound annual growth rate. The rate is 23.59%. By 2011, the output of modified plastics in China will be about 7.5 million tons, and it is expected to reach 8.53 million tons in 2012.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, as of the end of 2011, the number of enterprises above designated size in the modified plastics industry in my country had reached 290, with sales revenue of 77.919 billion yuan, an increase of 27.52%; the total industrial output value was 79.204 billion yuan, an increase of 29.35%. ; Realized sales profit of 8.764 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.47%; realized profits of 4.411 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.50%. On the whole, the scale of production and sales of the modified plastics industry expanded in 2011, and the business situation is good.

In recent years, my country's modified plastics industry has developed rapidly, with average annual growth rates of output and apparent consumption reaching 20% and 15% respectively. At present, the total annual domestic demand for modified plastics is about 5 million tons, accounting for about 10% of all plastic consumption, but it is still far below the world average of 20%. In addition, there is still a big gap between my country's per capita plastic consumption and developed countries in the world. As an indicator to measure the development level of a country’s plastics industry, the ratio of plastic to steel is only 30:70 in my country, which is not as good as the world average of 50:50, and even less than 70:30 in the United States and 63:37 in developed countries such as the United States and Germany.

  Foresight Industry Research Institute modified plastic industry researcher Xiang Jun believes that with the substantial improvement of people's living standards and the advancement of technical means, domestic "plastics to steel" and "plastics to wood" will become a trend in China. With the rapid development of my country's home appliances going to the countryside, old-for-new and automobile industry, it is expected that in the next 5 years, its total market demand will still maintain a growth rate of more than 10%.

  It is imminent to break the foreign power

With the development of my country’s economy and society, the market capacity of modified plastics in my country will continue to grow rapidly, but Chinese companies start late, have low technical levels, and have insufficient market share. The domestic 70%-80% market share is in the hands of multinational companies. , The self-sufficiency rate is relatively low, currently only about 31%, and a large number of modified plastics, especially high-end plastics, still need to be imported from abroad.

According to the analysis data of the Data Monitoring Center of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, as of the end of 2011, my country has 70 enterprises with a production capacity of more than 3,000 tons of modified plastics, with a total production capacity of about 1.68 million tons. In terms of quantity, 76.24% are domestic enterprises. , Foreign-funded or joint ventures accounted for 23.76%. In terms of production capacity, domestic enterprises accounted for 73%, and foreign-funded or joint ventures accounted for 27%.

   But on the whole, due to the late start of my country's modified plastics industry, the domestic market is mainly controlled by multinational companies and joint ventures controlled by foreign capital. At present, large foreign companies that have established modified plastic production bases in China include GE, DuPont, Hanna, Dow, BASF, Hearst, Asahi Kasei, Dakeneng, and Samsung Company, LG company, Kumho company, Dutch DSM company, etc.

At the same time, due to the late start of my country's modified plastics industry and insufficient research and development capabilities, the lack of core technology and backward processing equipment have become increasingly prominent.

In terms of the annual output of plastic materials and products, China has firmly ranked second in the world, but if you look at the technological level and independent intellectual property rights of plastic products, China is far from a plastic powerhouse. This is manifested in the following three aspects:

First, many products are still produced by relying on imported equipment and using foreign intellectual property rights. The self-sufficiency rate of domestic high-performance synthetic resins is less than 50%, and the self-sufficiency rate of high-performance modified engineering plastics is even lower. Most of them need to be imported from abroad. import;

Second, there is a big gap between China’s plastic processing equipment and developed countries. Taking the same-rotating twin-screw extruder with a diameter of 75 mm as an example, the production capacity of the same set of equipment abroad is 2-3 times that of domestic equipment. , And the mixing effect is better than domestic equipment;

Third, as the core of the functional modification technology of modified plastics-the development of processing aid formulations. At present, various plastic auxiliaries in developed countries have a complete range and strong specificity. At present, except for a few manufacturers in China, they can only produce Large variety of versatility. All the above conditions have severely restricted the development of China's modified plastics industry.

Judging from the current situation, the original formulations of general-purpose large-variety modified plastics are basically in the open state of the market, while the formulations of high-performance professional modified plastics are in the hands of leading companies in various segments and are strictly protected. Together, for example, DuPont and Alfina of the United States have most of the existing modified formulas on modified PE and modified PS products.

In addition, due to the scattered production capacity of my country's modified plastics industry and most of them are relatively weak small and medium-sized enterprises, the disorderly competition in the market has also led to structural surplus. A large number of low-end and medium-end products are flooded to produce surplus, and the technology content is high and the added value is high. High products are obviously insufficient and need to be imported from abroad, and the phenomenon of unreasonable product structure is more serious.

my country’s "Twelfth Five-Year Plan for New Materials" proposes that by 2015, my country’s new chemical materials and additives, processing machinery and mold manufacturing will form a 260 billion output value system, and the satisfaction rate of new chemical materials will reach 65% by then.

In this regard, Xiang Jun, a researcher in the modified plastics industry of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, pointed out that my country’s modified plastics industry should seize the opportunity to increase the research and development of new materials such as modified plastics, strengthen the development of modified technology formulas, and actively Promote the adjustment and upgrading of the industrial structure, and effectively enhance the market competitiveness of the industry.