The Asia-Pacific region exported sizable volumes of polypropylene, propylene copolymers (PRC), polystyrene, and uncompounded PVC (PVCU) in 2024. Export trends for polyethylene grades were mixed, polypropylene surged on new capacity, styrenic exports were relatively flat, PVC shipments dropped.
With a major impact on global trends, Asia-Pacific continued as the world’s largest regional importer of all grades of polyethylene, but fell to second place for polypropylene and PRC, after Eastern Europe. Import demand in the larger Asia-Pacific markets – China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia – varied by polymer, declining in some, others showing impressive growth.
Asia-Pacific exporters shipped 80-90% of their total exports of LDPE, LL/EAOC, HDPE, EVA, and PVCU within the region, 70% of their polypropylene homopolymer, propylene copolymer, and general purpose polystyrene, and roughly 50% of their expandable polystyrene (PSX).
Exports of polypropylene homopolymer from China nearly doubled, expanding within the region and also strongly to Latin America, Africa, and Europe.
China continued as the largest regional importer of all the commodity polymer grades except PSX and PVCU. Imports were down except for LL/EAOC (linear polyethylene), 6.2 million tons (up 1%), HDPE, 5.7 million tons (up 10%), and PSX, with minor volumes.
India was the region’s largest importer of PVCU, 3.3 million tons (up 1%). There were also gains on imports of EVA, PRC, and PSX but declines on LDPE, linear, HDPE, PP, and PSN.
Vietnam was an important volume and growth import market for each of the polymers except linear, 897,000 tons (down 6%). Imports of all the other polymers were up 10%-41%, with the highest gain on PVCU.
Indonesia was also a notable growth market for each one of the polymers, volume up 9%-28%, with the highest gains on HDPE, EVA, PP, and PVCU.
This series of blogs quantifies imports and exports of the major commodity polymers – LDPE, linear/ethylene-alpha-olefin copolymers (LL/EAOC), HDPE, EVA, PP, propylene copolymers, polystyrene, and PVC, 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 commodity polymers.