Polymers like acrylonitrile, butadiene and styrene will soon be manufactured in Middle East, forecasts Frost & Sullivan at ArabPlast 2015

Polymers like acrylonitrile, butadiene and styrene will soon be manufactured in Middle East, forecasts Frost & Sullivan at ArabPlast 2015

Strong opportunities for SMEs to play a bigger role in UAE’s plastics conversion sector

Dubai, UAE, 12 January 2015: Frost & Sullivan, Knowledge Partner of ArabPlast 2015, has projected on the third day of the leading petrochemicals show that polymers such as acrylonitrile, butadiene and styrene would soon be manufactured in the Middle East.

Satish Khanna, General Manager, Al Fajer Information and Services, Co-organiser of the show along with Germany’s Messe Dusseldorf said that in addition to building capacities across commodity plastics, production of polymers such as acrylonitrile, butadiene, styrene and others, which are not currently manufactured in the GCC, is one the cards.

“This offers a unique opportunity for the growth of the SME plastics conversion sector in UAE. The emergences of SMEs engaged in plastics conversion would boost exports further and provide tough competition to producers from more mature markets,” Khanna added.

Exhibitors at the show were upbeat on the excellent growth opportunities of the plastics industry in the Gulf. With supply of cheap raw materials, demand from key end industries such as construction, infrastructure, manufacturing, and packaging is providing opportunities for local manufacturing of end products.

ArabPlast 2015, the region’s biggest petrochemical exhibition and one of the largest in the world, is being held in Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre until the 13^th of January 2015.

The UAE exports have registered a steady growth over the past decade mainly driven by an increase in plastics and fertilizers sub-sectors. Currently these products account for the bulk of UAE’s petrochemical exports.

Jeen Joshua, Group Project Manager of ArabPlast 2015, added: “Top notch companies have been displaying their newest advancements in plastics, petrochemicals and other relevant industries, including machineries and solutions, at the show.”

Borouge launched its “new polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) plastics solutions for advanced packaging and household applications at the show, while ExxonMobil Chemical introduced three Exceed metallocene polyethylene (mPE) resin grades and NDC Technologies makes its debut since merger.

Astra Polymers has highlighted its ‘dust-free system’ of customer-specific additive pre-blends through a plant extension at the firm’s masterbatch manufacturing facility at Dammam in Saudi Arabia.

Joshua concluded: “The show has also seen the largest KSA and Indian pavilions.”