Plastics News Show Daily - April 3, 2012 - (Page 21)

PLASTICS NEWS, April 3, 2012 21 SPI says US plastics industry on track to recover in 2012 By Steve Toloken PLASTICS NEWS STAFF ORLANDO, FLA. — U.S. plastics production has an “extremely good chance” of recovering to pre-recession levels by the end of this year, barring a eurozone meltdown or other unforeseen economic shocks, a senior SPI official said in an April 1 speech at NPE2012 in Orlando. “If the trends continue in the same direction, and nothing of a large negative scale like a eurozone meltdown or something unforeseen like what happened in Japan does not occur, I think we have an extremely good chance by the end of the calendar year of returning to pre-recession levels,” said Michael Taylor, SPI’s senior director of international trade. The Washington-based Society of the Plastics Industry Inc. is one of the largest U.S. trade associations for plastics and sponsors the NPE show. Taylor made his comments at a forum on exporting sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and in an interview afterward. While overall, plastics industry gross domestic product is expected to recover this year, Taylor offered some sizable caveats — including that neither jobs nor the number of facilities are expected to regain pre-recession levels by that time. The U.S. plastics industry employed just under 900,000 people in 2010, the last year figures are available, compared with about 1.1 million in 2005, SPI said. “Obviously facilities are not going to be back to where they were, and on the employment side we’ve done tremendous things there, but it may still lag somewhat. But it is recovering,” he said. But, Taylor said, the overall manufacturing sector is recovering faster than the U.S. economy. Manufacturers as a whole in the United States have added more than 400,000 jobs in the last two years, the first time since the 1990s that the sector has added employees, he said. U.S. manufacturing should outperform overall GDP through 2013, with growth of 3.5 percent to 4 percent a year, compared with growth of about 2 percent for the U.S. economy generally, Taylor said. The U.S. plastics industry’s recovery is not uniform, however. The resin sector is faring best while the mold-making sector is experiencing difficulties, he said. The other two of the industry’s four core sectors — machinery and plastics product manufacturing — are faring reasonably well, he said. “I think resin stands out among the four core [sectors] as recovering the best, because of some other advantages, like the value of the dollar” and the price of natural gas in the United States, Taylor said. “All three core segments are doing pretty well. Molds are problematic.” As of mid-2011, production levels in the plastics products sector were also lagging, achieving 85 percent of what its production levels were in 2007, SPI said. That is an improvement over the sector’s worst recessionary numbers, when production levels were just 75 percent of 2007 figures. But in mid-2011, recovery was still in progress, SPI figures showed. Some mold-making companies express concerns about SPI’s support of free trade agreements, including new pacts with South Korea and Columbia, Taylor said. “I know when we talk about free trade advocacy, we do hear some negative comments about supporting free trade agreements from the mold side,” he said. “The mold segment is the one I want to understand better. What is the more complicated answer as to why mold making, among the four segments, is having a harder time? It doesn’t jump right out at you.” He said the mold-making sector showed signs of closing its trade gap at the end of 2011, and he noted that SPI is interested in following up on any complaints of unfair trade practices. A broad perspective is essential: every day, some 3.5 billion high-quality plastic parts are produced on ALLROUNDER machines – so the utmost production April 1 -5, 201 2 3729 Booth # L F rlando, O ARBURG, Inc. 125 Rockwell Road Newington, CT 06111 Tel.: +1 (860) 667 6500 Fax: +1 (860) 667 6522 e-mail: usa@arburg.com www.arburg.us  http://www.fipa.com http://www.arburg.us http://www.arburg.us

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