According to the World Packaging Organisation, the global packaging industry (including packaging machinery) turned over USD$485 billion dollars in 2004 with packaging supplies sales of around USD$460 billion and packaging machinery sales of around USD$25 billion. The packaging industry’s products are used widely in a range of industries spanning food and beverages, cosmetic, healthcare, industrial and other consumer goods across a large spectrum of sectors. The economy is the single biggest factor affecting the consumption of packaging products and equipments. The growth of the middle class in Asia will likely has a large positive impact on the packaging industry.

A wide range of materials is used in packaging which includes board, paper, plastic, glass, wood, metal and other materials. Paper and board packaging accounted for 38% of the market in 2003 and plastic packaging accounted for 30% of sales.

According to the OECD observer, the middle class included 1.8 billion people with 664 million from Europe, 525 million from Asia, 338 from America in 2009. Even in Africa where the growth of the middle class has not been very robust, it is still noticeable and contributed to the domestic consumption of many countries. This expansion in middle class consumers continues and the size of the total “global middle class” will increase to 3.2 billion by 2020 and 4.9 billion by 2030 from the 1.8 billion in 2009. Most of this growth will come from Asia.

With the data and trends above, we are confident that being located in Asia gives us the additional competitive edge to partake in the upcoming opportunities in the packaging industry.