US plastics industry maintains trade surplus according to Plastics Industry Association reports

The size of the US plastics industry expanded in 2018, accounting for 993,000 jobs and $451.3 billion worth of shipments, while also maintaining a trade surplus of $500 million, according to two new reports from the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS).

The two reports, ‘2019 Size & Impact of the US Plastics Industry’, which focuses on the US market, and ‘Global Business Trends’, which focuses on the US plastics industry’s position in the global market, contain forecasting data unique to PLASTICS.

This forecasting data is aimed to help its member identify new markets and trends in order to make better business in decisions.

Tony Radoszewski, CEO of PLASTICS, said: “Our ability to provide the most insightful, actionable data to our members is a big part of our value proposition. These two reports are the twin pillars that hold up the rest of our growing data apparatus.”

“Taken together the reports show a dynamic US plastics industry and a strong US economy where the demand for plastics and plastics products continues to grow.”

Though the US plastics industry is one of the only manufacturing sectors to have maintained a trades surplus for many years, in the 2018 the surplus did shrink from $3 billion on 2017 to $500 million in 2018.

Perc Pineda, Chief Economist for PLASTICS, said: “A strong US dollar and a sustained US economic expansion has increased the economy’s propensity to consumer imported goods, in addition to the use of imported intermediate goods in US plastics manufacturing.”

“This caused imports to rise faster than exports, which shrank our surplus, but it also indicates strong demand for plastics.”

“The 2019 Global Trends report also indicated that apparent consumption of plastics industry goods, calculated as the difference between shipments and exports plus imports, grew by 6.9 per cent in 2018.”