China’s PVC Industry Lags in Maintaining International Standards

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)-Currently, there are more than 90 polyvinyl chloride (PVC) factories in China. Except for Tibet, Hainan and Chongqing, PVC factories are in all provinces and municipalities. About 90% of these PVC factories are state-owned. In recent years, joint venture and shareholding PVC factories also saw considerable development in China.

Except for the few that run on imported technology and equipment, most Chinese PVC production units lag greatly behind international standards. Suspension and emulsion are the major PVC production methods used in China. The Chinese PVC product variety is only 1/20th of that in other countries. The most striking difference in the investment in ethylene-based projects in China and in other countries is that the country’s newly added capacity mostly adopts the acetylene method. This conflicts with world’s trend in ethylene production. The acetylene method relies on coal and calcium carbide, which are cheap and comparatively abundant in China. However, the open method of acetylene production pollutes the environment and produces considerable harmful industrial dust.

Because of the rapid expansion of PVC production capacity, domestic competition has created local protectionism among PVC enterprises. It is suggested that downstream and upstream PVC enterprises work together to build brand name awareness so that the strength of each will be fully tapped and that production and marketing costs could be lowered for both.

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