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At a press conference held in Nanjing on March 18 by the China Plastics Processing Industry Association, Wang Zhanjie, president of the association, said that by 2025, China’s plastics processing industry – as a traditional industry with advantages, an important industry for people’s livelihoods, as well as a foundational element of emerging and future industries – will demonstrate strong resilience in its development despite the complex and changing economic conditions at home and abroad. Production across the industry remained relatively stable, but due to various factors such as divergent market demands, increasing cost pressures, and international trade frictions, industry profitability declined, and the problem of \"intensified\" competition became more apparent. Looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan, the industry urgently needs to accelerate its transformation and upgrading process and pursue high-quality development. Operational fundamentals: Production remains stable while profitability is declining. According to data from the **Statistics Bureau, in 2025, enterprises in China’s plastic products industry produced 79.199 million tons of products, a slight 0.2% decrease compared to the previous year. Looking at the monthly trends, the first quarter started well with a year-on-year increase of 7.3%, after which the growth rate declined quarter by quarter, resulting in a stable production trend throughout the year. In the various sub-sectors, the total production of products such as plastic pipes, plastic woven products, plastic packaging boxes and containers, and plastic parts amounted to 50.524 million tons, accounting for 63.8% of the overall volume ； The output of plastic films was 18.7 million tons, accounting for 23.6%, of which 777,000 tons were agricultural films ； The output of daily-use plastic products was 4.875 million tons, accounting for 6.2%. In terms of regional breakdown, the ten provinces in the east produced 49.512 million tons, the six provinces in the central region produced 18.882 million tons, and the three provinces in the northeast produced 1.727 million tons ； Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Hubei rank among the top three provinces in terms of production, with the top ten provinces accounting for 80.7% of the country’s total production, indicating stable industry concentration. According to Wang Zhanjie, by 2025, there will be 24,339 enterprises in China’s plastic products industry that fall within the designated scale, generating revenue of 2,221.3 billion yuan, a decrease of 2.9% compared to the previous year ； The total profit amounted to 107.04 billion yuan, a decrease of 7.7% on a year-on-year basis ； The average industry profit margin was 4.8%, further narrowing compared to the previous year. The sharper decline in profits compared to the decline in revenue reflects increased cost pressures on enterprises, insufficient improvement in the added value of products, and a widespread phenomenon of increased production without corresponding increases in revenue. In terms of imports and exports, by 2025, China’s total exports of plastic products will amount to 104.61 billion US dollars, representing a 1.3% decline compared to the previous year ； Total imports amounted to 17.24 billion US dollars, a decrease of 3.1% year-on-year ； A trade surplus of 87.37 billion US dollars was achieved, accounting for 7.3% of the country’s total merchandise trade surplus. The export volume has remained above 100 billion dollars for five consecutive years. In terms of export markets, the United States remains the largest destination for exports, while the 11 ASEAN countries constitute the largest regional market. The trade facilitation measures under RCEP offer new growth opportunities for China’s plastic products exports. Key issues: Profit decline exceeds revenue decline; increased difficulties in exports along with rising costs. “Although the total output of plastic products nationwide remained relatively stable in 2025, structural contradictions in market demand are becoming increasingly prominent.” ”Wang Zhanjie said that demand in some traditional consumer sectors is growing weakly, with both the revenue and profit from the manufacturing of daily-use plastic products declining, indicating that residents’ purchasing power and willingness to spend are recovering at a relatively slow pace. At the same time, although there is growing demand for high-end plastic materials and products, there is severe homogenized competition in the mid- and low-end segments, making it difficult to raise product prices and thereby weakening the profitability of enterprises. It should be noted that the decline in profits was much greater than that in revenue; the average profit margin for this industry was only 4.8%, further declining compared to the previous year. Companies are facing increasing cost pressures in areas such as raw material procurement, manufacturing, and market sales. Some companies adopt low-price competition strategies to maintain their market share, resulting in a common phenomenon of \"increased production without increased revenue\" and \"increased revenue without increased profits\"; the living space for small and medium-sized enterprises is particularly squeezed. Wang Zhanjie pointed out that \"involutionary\" competition has become a prominent issue restricting the high-quality development of the industry. In pursuit of short-term profits, some companies reduce costs by lowering standards for raw materials, simplifying production processes, and cutting back on investments in safety, in order to capture market share at lower prices. Downstream users are highly sensitive to prices, which further intensifies price-based competition, disrupts market order, and damages the overall reputation of the industry. In some sub-sectors, there are no unified product standards or quality certification systems, and market supervision is insufficient; as a result, the phenomenon of inferior products driving out better ones occurs from time to time. Furthermore, in 2025, the global economic recovery fell short of expectations, with growth rates slowing down in major developed economies, which had a direct impact on China’s exports of plastic products. Some **adopt trade protection measures such as raising import tariffs, imposing technical barriers, and conducting anti-dumping and countervailing investigations, which increase the difficulties and costs associated with exports. Except for a few products with technical advantages, the export volumes of most traditional export categories have declined, and export growth faces considerable uncertainty. A way out: Led by technological innovation, with a diversified strategy for breakthroughs. Faced with a complex and challenging industry landscape, how can we turn challenges into opportunities and pressure into motivation? Wang Zhanjie said that China boasts the most complete industrial system in the world, a huge domestic market, and an increasingly favorable business environment – all of which serve as a solid foundation for the plastic processing industry to withstand risks and achieve long-term development. By 2026, the industry should pay close attention to **macro-policy trends, particularly policies and measures related to the high-quality development of manufacturing, green and low-carbon transformation, and innovation-driven growth. It should strive to obtain support in the form of policy funding, land for projects, and tax incentives, in order to turn these policy benefits into driving forces for development. To this end, he put forward the following four suggestions for development. First, adhere to innovation-driven development to accelerate the cultivation of new forms of productive forces. Placing technological innovation at the core of development, and through technological breakthroughs and innovative business models, driving the industry toward development in the directions of \"functionalization, high-end orientation, integration, sustainability, intelligence, and internationalization\" ； Continuously promote the deep integration of technological innovation and industrial innovation, strengthen efforts in developing key technologies, improve manufacturing standards, and accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, thereby injecting new momentum into enhancing core competitiveness, expanding application markets, and achieving cost reduction and efficiency improvement. Second, it is to implement the concept of green development and promote collaborative innovation within the industrial chain. Start from each link of the industrial chain to achieve green management throughout the entire life cycle ； Continuously promote energy conservation and emission reduction, adhering to a design philosophy for products that emphasizes reduction, use of single materials, and resource utilization, as well as adopting technologies for waste treatment that ensure recyclability, ease of recovery, and biodegradability ； By collaborating with stakeholders across the upstream and downstream segments of the industrial chain, new technologies and methods for addressing plastic waste pollution are promoted, thereby fostering sustainable green and ecological development throughout the entire industry chain. Third, leverage functional advantages to promote synergistic effects across the entire industrial chain. By focusing on material formula optimization, innovative structural design, and improved processing techniques, we continue to expand the performance capabilities of plastic products, ensuring they meet the sophisticated and personalized demands of strategic emerging industries such as intelligent connected new energy vehicles, robots, and biomedicine, as well as future industries like brain-computer interfaces, embodied intelligence, and sixth-generation mobile communications ； Foster deep integration and efficient coordination among various stages such as upstream raw material supply, midstream product processing, downstream market applications and equipment manufacturing, research and development design, and recycling. Fourth, strengthen international exchanges and cooperation to promote the stabilization of volume and improvement of quality in foreign trade. Actively expand into diversified international markets; while focusing on traditional markets such as Europe and the United States, increase efforts to develop emerging markets such as those under the Belt and Road Initiative, ASEAN, the Middle East, and Latin America ； By establishing overseas R&D centers and production facilities, or forming joint ventures with local companies, a more stable overseas market network can be built ； Actively participate in the formulation and revision of international standards, promote the alignment and mutual recognition between domestic advanced standards and international standards, and enhance China’s voice and influence in the international market.