Challenges For The Petrochemical Industry In Egyptian Plastics Market

Plastics are one of the most value-added products of the oil and gas downstream industry and have become essential to our lives.

Egypt Plastic Market

Plastic industries are among the essential Egyptian industries that significantly impact economic growth. The plastic industry's contribution to Egyptian GDP is assessed at 12%. Egypt is considered as the African continent's market for plastic raw materials.

With about 2.65 million tons/year of plastic consumed during 2021, representing more than 20% of the African continent plastics market size, according to the latest reports issued by the Export Council for Chemical Industries,The volume of investments in this sector is about $7.2 billion.

Plastic Consumption

Egypt’s annual consumption of plastic products and materials is $9.35billion, and the packaging industry accounts for 38% of the total consumption of plastic raw materials.

The volume of Egypt’s exports amounted to 1,656 billion dollars. Wheresas, the exports of plastic raw materials represent 31% of the sector’s exports.

The Egyptian imports of plastic material produced locally (PVC, PE, PP, PET, PS) represent about 70% of the country’s needs for raw materials. The volume of imports is about 3.2 billion dollars.

In contrast, Egyptian producers of polypropylene and polyethylene (Sidpec, Ethydco, OPC, and EPPC)…