GOIC expects a consumption of 3.2 million tons of plastic in 2012

The later figure represents the full design capacity of plants operating in the production of plastic products including fiberglass.

In the same study, GOIC said that the average per capita consumption in GCC member states of these products might reach 78 kg annually by 2012, compared to about 67 kg in 2006.

As such, it will be one of the highest consumption rates in the world, and similar to the rates of per capita consumption in the developed industrial nations, while the average world consumption per capita of plastic doesn't exceed 25 kg.

GOIC called upon GCC member states to cope with the expected demand by increasing production capacities of all plastic products, and fiberglass to about 844,000 tons.

The study noted to the need for more efforts in GCC member states in plastic products industry. Such efforts include greater regulation, integration and restructuring, further to exploring the possibility of mergers to reduce competition and costs, and keep up with global developments in the firm.

The report also pointed to the fact that most factories operating in the industry are of small-size, low production capacity, and suffer from weakness of marketing and financing capabilities, which limits their competitiveness.

The report also showed that factories which production capacity amounting to 10,000 tons per factory annually, represent only 5% of the total number of factories operating in this sector. On the other hand, small-sized factories which their capacity is less than 1200 tons per year represent about 50%.

The report described Gulf plastic products industry as a substitutive industry, often. However, there were many factors that pushed plastic factories to move toward foreign markets and competition.

Amongst those factors there is the establishment of a number of factories with relatively large productivity, inability of local market to absorb such quantities, in addition to the existence of some sort of Gulf competition within the Gulf market, and production of very similar plastic products.

Accordingly, GCC volume of exports of plastic products increased from 261,000 tons in 2001 to 817,000 tons in 2006, 60% of which was bilateral trade, and the rest went to neighboring and foreign markets.

The report called upon Gulf manufacturers to direct more attention to the issue of quality improvement, cost reduction and emphasis on international specifications and standards. It also called for intensifying efforts to develop marketing mechanisms and find new markets for products, especially Asia, Middle East and Africa.