Page 17 - Plastics News March 2019

AIPMA AT WORK

Dynamic Global Conference on Plastics & Packaging, Awards 2019

L K Singh, VP North, AIPMA

he first dynamic global conference on Plastics & Packaging sector is the largest
TPackaging, awards 2019 was organised in association single consumption segment
MSME and Plexconcil at Vigyan Bhawan, Delhi during 7-8 of the plastics industry in
Marc h 2019. The two day conference saw many heavy India. Almost everything is
weights making their presence felt. packed in plastics, forming
over 30% of the plastics
AIPMA, representing an Industry Association, started 73
years ago, currently with over 22,000 Industry members produced.
direct and affiliate regional bodies has been and continues However, agriculture sector
to be dedicated to the development of the Indian Plastics still hasn't explored full
industry, specially the MSME sector. benefits that plastic products
have to offer. Global average
Plastics play a critical role in meeting material needs of
modern society in Agriculture, Healthcare, Automobiles, for plastics demand in agriculture is ~8% while India is
Appliances, Building & Construction, Infrastructure, substantially lower, at ~2%.
India offers strong opportunity for manufacturing of
petrochemicals in future with its plan to increase the share
of manufacturing in GDP from current 16% to 25% by 2022.
The increasing demographic dividend, urbanization, young
population, growing income levels all support a strong case
of increase in both demand and supply of petrochemicals
in India. Plastics are the major product that account for
bulk of the Indian petrochemical industry.
Demand for Plastics in India is currently growing at an
average rate of 8.9% for the past 4 years (2013-14 to 2017-
18). It is expected to reach 24 Million Ton by 2022-23 and
Packaging and Household Articles amongst others. 35 Million Ton by 2027-28.
Plastics are versatile in performance and highly cost
effective as compared to alternative materials. Plastics With this fast growth, the industry will face a shortage of
are environment friendly and leave the least carbon foot skilled manpower. If adequate measures are not taken, the
print compared to the alternate conventional materials. industry will witness acute shortage of skilled manpower.
The industry will also face the challenges of continuous
The annual consumption of virgin grade polymers for technology upgradation. Unless supported, the industry,
the year 2017-18 was 15.9 Million Ton as compared to specially MSME, will be unable to keep up with latest
global consumption of 275 Million Ton. With 17.7% of developments in technology, which would be detrimental
world population, India accounts for barely 4% of global to the growth of the industry.
demand for plastics. Per capita consumption of plastics
in the country during 2017-18 was 12 kg as compared In order to address this, AIPMA has recently created a
to global average consumption of 30 Kg per capita. It is knowledge infrastructure in Gurgaon, Delhi NCR & Mumbai,
109 kg in USA, 45 kg in China and 32 kg in Brazil. This wherein we plan to setup Skill Development Centres as
indicates Indian Polymer industry has lagged behind. well as Plastic Testing centres, with latest equipments.
The Current low per capita consumption level of plastic Hon’ble Industry and Commerce Industry Minster is
products suggests that India offers a gigantic long term requested to help AIPMA in this endeavour, under Atal
opportunities in the industry. Yojna and MSME schemes or Niti Aayog.

17 March 2019 Plastics News