Emerging circular economy solutions

The world economy is facing many challenges in 2020 as major countries need to overcome slower trade growth and policy restrictions.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates that the global economy is likely to expand by 3.4% in 2020. In Asia, China remains a major economic force, with India also taking a vital role.

As a single market, Southeast Asia remains a very attractive haven for fastgrowing industries such as automotive, packaging, medical products, construction and consumer electronics. The region is also taking important global issues into its stream – plastic waste management, recycling, circular economy along with the adoption of technologies for smart manufacturing through Industry 4.0, digitalisation and other initiatives. Southeast Asia’s plastics market is expected to register a CAGR of 5.5% from 2018- 2023, according to a report by Mordor Intelligence. The report further expects the packaging and construction sectors to be major consumer applications of plastics in the region.

In this article, International Plastics News for Asia sought the opinions of representatives of major industry players on the key issues that the plastics industry needs to confront, the factors that will affect their operations and the directions they will take to meet market demands.

Resource efficiency and digitalisation

Digitalisation, resource efficiency and green production are key concerns for the plastics industry and ARBURG (www.arburg.com) has been clearly focusing on those trends and responding to the needs of the various industries relying on plastics – such as automotive.