In advance of the “Chinaplas” trade fair (www.chinaplasonline.com) the European association of plastics and rubber machinery manufacturers, Euromap (Frankfurt / Germany; www.euromap.org), spoke with a number of its member companies who will be present at the fair and are active in supplying machinery to Chinese customers operating in a wide range of industries.

These companies all consider Chinaplas to be one of the key events on the calendar. To Euromap, China is one of the most important, if not the most important, sales market for exports of plastics and rubber machinery. Over 10% of all Euromap exports, amounting to around EUR 930m, were delivered there in 2012.

At German film production machinery manufacturer Brückner Maschinenbau (Siegsdorf / Germany; www.brueckner.com), around two-thirds of film stretching lines sold during the past three years were delivered to Asia, particularly China, where installed biaxial-oriented (BO) film production capacity has increased ten-fold since 1996. The country now accounts for around 40% of worldwide production capacity.

Brückner Maschinenbau sales director, Markus Gschwandtner, said: “As domestic film demand continues to grow, China will remain the most important single market for Brückner. The press tells us that it is hard to maintain the “steaming” growth of 7.0% to 7.5%. With the trend to increased urbanisation continuing, there is still further demand for investment, but it will grow more slowly than we have seen in the past three to four years.”

Gschwandtner said that flexible packaging offers the most potential in China, with growth in a more affluent middle class and increased urbanisation demanding more packed goods sold in supermarkets and shopping malls. He added that Chinese film manufacturers are showing increasing interest in speciality film lines to meet rising demand for innovative, functional BO films, such as ultra-thin PP or PET film for capacitors in electronic consumer goods and electric vehicles and PET films for flexible printed circuitry and electrical power insulation in cables and electric motor windings, for example.

BOPET films are used in the fast-growing market for solar and photovoltaic (PV) panels and their back sheets in a market that has overcapacity in China – and may be facing trade barriers from the West – but that is anticipating films replacing glass sheets as the trend towards more flexible, three dimensional, panels continues.

Brückner Maschinenbau’s marketing manager, Christian Aigner, said: “If you look at the five-year plan of the Chinese government, they said they want to increase renewable energy, both wind and solar, by around 30%, so domestic consumption will increase, reducing the pressure to export PV panels to some extent.” Gschwandtner confirmed that he believes that PV panel producers will look more in the future to the domestic market rather than to exports.

Austrian injection moulding machinery maker Engel (Schwertberg; www.engelglobal.com) considers that China has become one of its most important markets over the last few years, with demand for high technology machines and system solutions increasing dramatically in future. “We expect China to be the largest market for Engel in the future,” said Peter Neumann, Engel Austria CEO, “Although our largest markets at this moment are still Germany and the US, I would say China could become Engel’s largest market within the next two to three years.”

For Engel, the automotive industry is the most important for its products in China, where more or less the same quality and technology standards apply in the car industry as in the rest of the world, it said. Foreign car manufacturers that have invested in production in China demand the same technologies as they have either in Europe or in the US, so their suppliers must fulfil the same specifications and, accordingly, need the same equipment, with the same technology.

Engel also focuses on the packaging and medical markets, which are two high demand industries – not as large in volume as automotive, but very stable segments in the long term, it said. “China has a very fast growing market also in containers and other such applications,” Neumann said, “I think there will be a lot of new products implemented in the Chinese packaging industry market in the next few years. We certainly see high demand in the medical industry now, with China starting to go up to a really high level. And here it’s the same as with other industries – you need the same standards and therefore the same technologies.”

Strategically and tactically, China is a very important market for auxiliary equipment manufacturer Piovan (Santa Maria di Sala / Italy; www.piovan.com) says the company’s chief marketing officer Giorgio Santella. The company focuses on the efficiency and reliability of its equipment, reducing overall energy costs, despite higher capital costs in some cases.
“Packaging, automotive and electronics are the application areas that see us very involved and present,” Santella said, “All three sectors are very developed and utilise advanced production technologies. Our customers in China were initially entirely made up of western companies that had set up plants in China. But today it is a very good balance. In terms of value, more Chinese companies, as they are mainly involved with large packaging systems, while the global companies still account for the greater value due their covering automotive and electronics areas with smaller systems. For medical, the number one market is the US, but we are also active in China, for example with equipment designed for clean room moulding operations.”

Helmut Heinson, director of sales at German plastics machinery maker Arburg (Loßburg; www.arburg.com), said that strong growth rates in China mean that the country plays an important role in expanding the company’s export business. It is active in China in the automotive, electronics and packaging industries. For the automotive industry this involves mainly global companies operating in China, but it is by far mainly local Chinese companies in electronics and packaging, he added. In electronics for example, it has sold a lot of machines to contract manufacturers supplying large global electronic equipment companies. Heinson added that he sees great potential in future with medical technology in clean room machines and with turnkey concepts.

“We have a policy to spread our business activities over the world, dividing it into three different almost equal sections: Germany, Europe and “overseas” – the Americas and Asia. This fact alone makes it very clear that we do not expect China to become Arburg’s major market in the near future. One should never say “never”, but it won’t happen within a longer time-frame of seven to eight years,” Heinson said, “It is clear Arburg will not be affected by possible cooling of the Chinese economy and credit tightening – due to the focus on high level products and sophisticated application. This market segment is not decreasing, but increasing. Something like 80% of our customers in China in 2003 to 2004 [when the company started operating in the country] were global companies. Now it is completely the other way round: 70-80% local Chinese companies,” he concluded.

“Chinaplas” has clearly become an important annual venue for these machinery manufacturers, which consider China to be of primary importance and additionally provides access to the huge Asian market. Since 1987, the fair has received support from Euromap as the sponsor. “Chinaplas 2014” will be the 25th consecutive edition with Euromap as the exclusive sponsor in China.