Dubai: The plastics and petrochemicals industry is now the second largest in the regional manufacturing sector and accounts for more than 35 per cent of global plastic trades, say experts.
The regional plastic production capacity has also tripled in the last decade, reaching more than 25 million tonnes and earning over $30 billion (Dh110 billion) in revenue, industry authorities said at a press conference on the launch of ArabPlast 2017, the regional annual trade show for the plastics industry, on Monday.
According to the latest report by the Gulf Petrochemical and Chemical Association, GPCA, the industry reached a production capacity of 144.6 million tonnes in 2015, creating over 500,000 jobs and $108 billion worth of products.
The report also indicates that the petrochemical and chemical industry in the UAE alone managed a 13.7 million tonnes per year of petrochemical capacity in 2016 respectively.
“As the region focuses on diversification, the petrochemical industry has proved its resilience and continued growth despite many challenges and Barouge, in its capacity as a major player in the region, is committed to increasing this contribution to the UAE,” said Hazeem Sultan Al Suwaidi, senior vice president regional Middle East and Africa Exports, at Borouge, the UAE based provider of plastics solutions.
Speakers discussed that while falling oil market prices and rising feedstock costs have been impacting the industry, investments in plastics and petrochemicals defy the current market conditions.
“It is a fact that this sector has been impacted during this year by the falling oil market prices and rising feedstock costs. This is one of the challenges that the participants will discuss during ArabPlast 2017 and develop beneficial strategies that target the local and international industrialists and decision makers,” said Satish Khanna, general manager of Al Fajer Information and Services, organiser of the event.
The trade show is expecting an 11 per cent increase in exhibitor listing from last year with 972 exhibitors from 45 countries expected to showcase a variety of plastic machinery and processing technologies including pre- and post-processing systems, plastic packaging, injection and blow moulding, chemicals and additives and other plastic product.
“We particularly expect a remarkable contribution from German companies as Germany remains the largest manufacturer of plastics in Europe followed by China, which is the key export market for Gulf petrochemical products, will be represented by 175 exhibitors,” Khanna said.
Exhibitors will also be discussing the trends in bioplastic, which currently revenues more than $2.6b globally.
The 13th edition of ArabPlast is to be held between 8th and 10th January 2017 at Dubai World Trade Centre.
