ITP’s analysis of commodity polymers trade projects higher global trade volume in 2024 versus 2023 for all of the polymers listed below except polystyrene, which is projected flat, and EVA and high pressure LDPE, which are projected to contract. Changes in trade volume are linked to changes in demand, production and shipping.

The ITP Global Trade Indicator measures global trade volume using trade statistics from all publishing countries. ITP’s unique methodology compensates for the fact that not all countries publish statistics; nearly all of the world’s volume is captured by using available import statistics to show exports for non-reporting exporting countries and available export statistics to show imports for non-reporting importing countries.

The ITP Global Trade Indicators projected for 2024 show the greatest expansions in trade for uncompounded PVC and propylene copolymers, each up 6%, HDPE, up 5%, and linear as ethylene-alpha-olefin copolymers plus other, up 4%.

Future blog posts will summarize commodity polymer trade in 2024 for Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, North America, Latin America, Middle East and Asia-Pacific.

From International Trader Publications’ World Trade Analyses and Projected Matrixes for each product.