How big is the Chinese plastics industry?
More than 13,000 Chinese plastics converters, each with sales above $3.2 million annually, operated in China in 2011, says the China Plastic Product Industry Association. These companies employed more than 2.5 million workers and shipped 110 billion pounds of products that year.
The principal products made by Chinese firms include pipe and profiles (17 percent of the industry’s output), film (13 percent), filament (12 percent), consumer goods (11 percent), containers (nine percent) and technical components (eight percent).
Resin consumption in 2011 approached 104 billion pounds, led by PE (36 billion pounds), PVC (28 billion pounds) and PP (26 billion pounds).
