Asia-Pacific was the world’s largest exporter of all of these engineering polymers in 2024 and volumes were up from the prior year, especially for PET. Asia-Pacific was also the world’s largest importer of polyacetals, polycarbonates and PMMA. Trade flows shifted markedly for both exports and imports.

Africa, Latin America and the Middle East were particularly strong growth export destinations for both grades of PET. Asia-Pacific exports of PET to Western Europe declined while those to Eastern Europe posted small gains. Exports of PET to North America showed mixed trends, bottle grade volumes down but gains on film/fiber grade.

Asia-Pacific exported higher volumes of ABS, SAN, polyacetal and polycarbonate to North America and Latin America. Exports to Eastern Europe of each of these polymers, and also PMMA, were down as the region imported more from Western Europe.

Vietnam and Malaysia accounted for much of the increase in the regions imports of ABS. Imports of polyacetals into Asia-Pacific, mainly China, surged in 2024 on increased supplies from North America and Western Europe. Asia-Pacific imported less PC from Western Europe and North America, the declines not not offset by a small increase from the Middle East.

This series of blogs quantifies imports and exports in 2024 of the major engineering polymers – ABS, SAN, Polyacetal, PC, PMMA, and PET – allowing comparisons across the polymers for the geographic regions of Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, North America, Latin America, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.

From International Trader Publications’ continuously updated World Trade Analyses of all grades of engineering polymers.