CeeIndustrial reports on the Plastic and Rubber industry and opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe.

Despite the global economic down turn Central and Eastern Europe still promises growth for the plastic and rubber industries and CeeIndustrial is still optimistic for the future of the plastic and rubber industries in Central and Eastern Europe. There has been a slight decline in growth in the plastic and rubber industries and the days of double digit growth in the accession CEE countries has long gone but since the downturn these countries have still been experiencing growth of an average of 2.5% across the CEE region.

An industry that has been helping keep the plastic and rubber industry in positive growth is the automotive industry and this along with the growth in the packaging industry will ensure that Central in Eastern Europe is in an excellent position to capitalize on the future up turn in there domestic and global markets. CEE uses about 2.7bn KG per year of plastic resin, the top industries for the use of plastics processing end markets are Automotive, food and packaging film, building and construction, and food packaging overall. Poland is the largest market with in the Accession counties but Russia is the largest market with in the Central and Eastern European region. Four counties Russia, Poland, Czech and Hungary account for two thirds of overall plastic utilization across CEE. The country with the largest growth from 2007 is Slovakia and this largely due to the developing automotive industry as Slovakia has been liken to as the “Detroit of the east” Seemingly, this tendency of growth will continue for some time in the future. Despite this fact, the order of the countries will not change.

Investment into the Plastic and Rubber industry in the new EU countries tends to come from direct foreign investment, and as a result are subject to movements in investment cash flow and government incentives. Investments manly come from the older EU counties the US and Japan. Germany is the leading outside investing country in the Plastic and rubber industry into Central and Eastern Europe and Japan is the 4th which is mainly due to the investment form the Japanese auto and electronics industries. Russia tends to get its investment in the Plastic and Rubber processing industries more inwards and the Russian government has recently announce incentives to the plastic industry as they see this a strategic industry of importance for 2010 to 2015.

And although the region may not return to the high growth rates it enjoyed before the economic crisis, it still has large potential growth in plastics consumption.
Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Bosnia — with a combined population of more than 210 million — each consume less than 55 pounds (25kg) of plastic per person each year. Poland is more developed, with per-capita plastics use of more than 120 pounds (54kg). Czech Republic, at 160 pounds (73kg), and Slovenia, at more than 175 pounds (79kg), also have high per-capita rates, but have relatively small populations.
By comparison, per-capita plastics use in the US is about 240 pounds (109kg). In China, that rate is about 65 pounds (29kg).
Ukraine and other former Soviet republics are driven by internal markets, but many other countries in the region are driven by exports to other parts of Europe. Former Soviet republics often have large populations and ample natural resources. Economies in the Baltic nations — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — have been driven by investment from Scandinavian banks

Leading Companies from around the world are investing in the Central and Eastern Europe region and CeeIndustrial helps companies establish strong partnerships across the region through the leading B2B portal dedicated to the CEE region

Battenfeld Extrusionstechnik GmbH which is a produce pipes, profile, film, sheet and pellets extrusion sees a region such as Eastern Europe as a market with excellent potential, where customers are often newcomers to the profile industry and want to buy an optimised and proven production system. The potential market is estimated to amount to around 30 systems a year.

DuPont Group is building a new € 9.2 euro plant for the production of films for laminated in Czech town of Holesoy which is in Moravian and should be finished in October 2011 and will initially employ 15 staff. Dupont head quarters are in Prague and has had a strong presence in the Czech Republic since its purchase of the Czech safety glass supplier Retrim-CZ in 2004. Retrim is a specialist in recycling PVE (polyvinyl butyral resin) its technology allows the re-use of the material in the manufacture of automotive and architectural laminated glass. Dupont now employs a total of 111 people in the Czech Republic.

Well Shyang Machinery is one of the Leaders in Manufacturing rubber and plastic machinery from Taiwan. We have many years of experience in the Kneader and extruder field Professional technology and quality performances are what we specialize in. We are looking for Agents, Distributors system integrators end users across the Central and Eastern Europe region

Promens the Icelandic plastics processing company has joined forces with the Romanian company SC Chimica of Orastie who are a injection molder, this will enable Promens to accelerate its growth and further is development of its business in the Central and Eastern Europe region. Promens will produce automotive parts and Consumer products. S C Chimica has 48 injection molding machines with a clamping force range of 40 to 1400 tones and its own tooling unit that is capable of making moulds of up to 20 tons.

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