China's plastic packaging machine industry has been leading the world Interview with Chen Jiancheng, Vice President of Borouge North Asia Packaging Division

Facing the shock of COVID-19 in 2020, China has become the world's largest growth engine. Chen Jiancheng said: "When the world's supply chain is at a standstill, only China can maintain its own productivity. Taking Bo's as an example, the sales growth in the Chinese market last year was astonishing, because our order scheduling not only has to keep up with domestic production. The pace of recovery in the consumer market will also further meet the strong demand in the export market.”

China is the world's largest packaging manufacturer and consumer. The proportion of packaging applications in the total value of the plastics industry is as high as 25%, making it the main force in the plastics industry. Plastic packaging plays an irreplaceable role in various fields of food, beverage, daily necessities, agriculture and industrial production. According to third-party data, the global plastic packaging market size is about 222.9 billion US dollars. In 2019, China's plastic packaging exports reached 22.586 billion US dollars, an increase of 8% year-on-year, accounting for 64.5% of China's packaging exports.

The proportion of packaging materials in China

From April 13th to 16th, 2021, at the CHINAPLAS International Rubber and Plastics Exhibition held at the Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center, Borouge, the world's leading supplier of innovative and value-added plastic solutions, unveiled its BornewablesTM, AnbiqTM and other series of products, which was amazing the plastic packaging industry.

In the view of Chen Jiancheng, vice president of the North Asia Packaging Division of Bo Lu China's plastic packaging industry has been at the forefront of the world, the Chinese market has huge potential, and basically no dark clouds will appear. Bo䘵 will provide more customized value-added services for Chinese customers with the world's leading R&D strength.

China's plastic packaging industry, which is at the forefront of the world, is still climbing

As the world's leading petrochemical company, Borouge's growth in the past two decades is closely related to the development of the Chinese market. In recent years, Bo Lu confidence in the Chinese market has grown day by day.

Facing the impact of the new crown epidemic in 2020, China has become the world's largest growth engine. Chen Jiancheng said: "When the world's supply chain is at a standstill, only China can maintain its own productivity. Taking Bo's as an example, the sales growth in the Chinese market last year was astonishing, because our order scheduling not only has to keep up with domestic production. The pace of recovery in the consumer market will also further meet the strong demand in the export market.”

After 30 years of rapid development, China's plastic packaging industry has been at the forefront of the world. This is an intuitive feeling of Chen Jiancheng. He said: "The machines used by our customers in the Chinese market are the most advanced in the world, the process technology is the world's leading, and the processing speed is the fastest. When the company formulated the future strategic plan a few months ago, we deeply I feel that the Chinese market is developing faster and faster, even accelerating, and it has opened the gap with other countries in many aspects.

In addition, the agility of Chinese plastic packaging companies is also surprising. They are ambitious and willing to try new products with concrete benefits. Chen Jiancheng said: "Like the BornnewablesTM we mentioned earlier, our demand in the Chinese market is much stronger than elsewhere, and some customers even notify us immediately after our product is launched, and they will get the relevant certification next month. , and then we can officially use our products.”

"Now, Chinese companies can produce and supply products with differentiated value from a global perspective. They have the latest technology and huge market demand, and have come to the forefront of the global market. We often observe that some customers use the most The production efficiency of advanced processing machines is even 50% faster than that of European counterparts. Although it is not as good as the developed markets in Europe and the United States in terms of product innovation and cutting-edge technology, Chinese enterprises are extremely powerful in execution. Let's talk."

What is even more commendable is that with the advancement of China's urbanization process and the sinking of consumption to third- and fourth-tier cities, the younger generation of consumers' demand for product packaging is more personalized, healthy, environmentally friendly and high-quality, which will drive the industry. The road of differentiation and high quality means that China's plastic packaging industry will be in a higher stage of climbing in the next few years.

Borouge is a leading petrochemical company providing innovative plastic solutions for energy, infrastructure, automotive, packaging, medical and agriculture. Borouge was established in 1998 as a joint venture between Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and Borealis. Borouge has its production headquarters in the United Arab Emirates and its marketing headquarters in Singapore, and employs more than 3,000 people worldwide, focusing on the Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa and Indian subcontinent markets. The current annual production capacity is 4.5 million tons, and it intends to further increase the production capacity.

Bo Lu is one of the fastest growing companies in the plastics industry over the past 20 years. By deepening the use of oil and gas resources, providing innovative and high value-added plastic solutions, and converting to high-quality plastic packaging, it aims to improve the quality of human life. High-quality plastic packaging can greatly reduce food production waste and food loss during transportation. Bo 䘵 is convinced that plastic is one of the most cost-effective product packaging solutions.

In the beverage industry, Borstar's polyethylene and polypropylene products have become the preferred raw materials for cap products. "We will have long-term and in-depth cooperation with brand owners, and actively explore the sustainable development of packaging while continuously improving product quality." Chen Jiancheng said. "For example, a popular brand beverage that has been successfully commercialized at present has cooperated with our materials in major production bases across the country. For the two major markets of carbonated soft drinks and bottled water, the air tightness requirements of products of different specifications are also different. Exactly the same. Borouge Borstar's polyethylene products, thanks to their excellent resistance to environmental stress cracking, are fully capable of meeting the demanding requirements of all types of closures."

Combined with Borealis products, Borouge is launching medical packaging materials and other special packaging materials simultaneously in the Chinese market.

In addition, in order to better match the layout of the entire industry chain and expand business in the central and western regions, Bo Lu established the sixth domestic logistics warehouse in Wuhan, which was officially put into operation in the fourth quarter of last year. So far, with the Luzhou warehouse in Sichuan in the west, the Tianjin warehouse in the north, the East China warehouse in Shanghai and Ningbo, and the South China warehouse in Nansha, Guangzhou, Borouge has established a very complete logistics network and customer service system in the Chinese market.

In recent years, environmental pollution problems such as solid plastic waste have become more and more prominent, and more restrictions have been imposed on the use of disposable plastic packaging in China. In this regard, Bo Lu believes that promoting sustainable development and circular economy will be an imperative direction for the industry. Chen Jiancheng said: "We advocate the promotion of lightweight, reusable, recyclable design and recycling of packaging. In fact, we are also cooperating with many big brands, who have proposed a grand circular economy vision and strict implementation. Timetable. In order to closely meet the needs of brand owners, we are also making every effort to develop more circular economy products and promote application-side solutions.”

Bo Lu has established a Packaging Center of Excellence and a dedicated circular economy team to promote a zero-waste economy for packaging. Follow the 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) principles of packaging, vigorously promote industrial chain collaboration, expand recycled material business, commercialize new solutions, and actively guide the public to rationally use plastic packaging.

"Relevant policies and regulations for plastic pollution control in China have been introduced and improved one after another, which is a long-term direction. In fact, we have also made adequate preparations and fully cooperated with government and industry policies. As a responsible petrochemical company, Borouge I believe that the realization of the zero-waste economy is inseparable from the concerted efforts and cooperation with the government, industry, consumers and all parties in the society." Chen Jiancheng said.

In this exhibition, Bo 䘵 brought BornewablesTM series products - a non-petroleum-based polyolefin product to the Chinese market. Bornewables™ is a series of polyolefin products produced from bio-oil waste as the main raw material. Compared to polyolefin products produced from traditional petroleum-based feedstocks by the same process in the same plant, the carbon footprint of BornewablesTMPP products is reduced by nearly 127%. In the North Asian market, many brand end customers are already working closely with us to accelerate the development of downstream products.

At present, Borouge has been certified by ISCC (International Sustainability and Carbon Certification) PLUS.

Bornewables™ products are widely used in various plastic packaging applications, and will be an innovative and differentiated solution for reducing carbon footprint and dependence on petroleum resources.

At Chinaplas 2021, Bo  also brought AnbiqTM series of new products to the Chinese market, which is a high-performance reinforced linear low density polyethylene, which is the AnteoTM bimodal ternary copolymer launched in 2017 A powerful complement to polyethylene products. The launch of AnbiqTM products will bring customers the best performance-to-cost ratio and become the first choice in the flexible packaging industry.

In addition, Chen Jiancheng said: "At present, the mainstream beverage plastic bottles on the market are made of PE, the bottle body is made of PET, and the label is made of PVC. The packaging design of different materials will cause difficulties in downstream recycling. Compared with flexible packaging products Like the challenges encountered in the multi-material composite structure, the single-material packaging solution will be more conducive to recycling in the future."

Currently, Bo  is actively cooperating with the recycled plastics industry chain, combining Bo  new materials based on proprietary Borstar® technology and rich experience in application development, to create packaging containing certain recycled plastic components for customers solution.

"In the field of flexible packaging and rigid packaging, we work with customers to develop formulas containing recycled materials, and it is required that the product use must achieve the effect of the original pure new material products, which will be a major focus of our application solutions." Chen Jiancheng Say.

Regarding the utilization of recycled plastics and circular economy solutions, Bo has already carried out numerous projects in full swing. By cooperating with the industry chain and cooperating with recyclers, brands, machine dealers and processors, we will jointly promote the environmental protection and green development of China's packaging industry.

In addition to making plastic packaging more valuable for recycling, Bo 䘵 is also actively cooperating with processors and brands to develop lightweight packaging solutions to reduce plastic usage and carbon footprint. Chen Jiancheng said: "We hope to reduce the excessive packaging of plastics. As a supplier of packaging raw materials, we hope that the industry chain will form a healthy development, promote the rational and effective use of plastics, encourage the reuse of packaging, and reduce packaging waste."

For example, the now popular case of refill stand-up bags reduces the use of bottle containers. If a bottle weighs 100 grams, the stand-up bag of the same capacity only needs about 10 grams, and the amount of plastic used is reduced by nearly 90%. At the same time, the reduction in packaging weight also reduces the carbon footprint of the product's transportation.

At present, my country's plastic packaging industry is in a critical period of transition from an extensive high-speed growth stage to a slow-growing high-end industry stage.

Providing value-added plastic solutions for the packaging industry and becoming a pioneer in sustainable packaging development and a zero-waste economy for plastics is what BoX is striving for.