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According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the number of printing enterprises above scale (i.e., those with an annual operating revenue of more than RMB 20 million) included in its statistical scope nationwide is approximately 7,000, with packaging printing enterprises accounting for as much as 75% of the total.

As far as the revenue and profit of the printing and recording media reproduction industry are concerned, in the first nine months of 2024, the industry achieved a business revenue of 483.18 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.7 per cent, but total profit was 21.93 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.0 per cent.

Meanwhile, the nation's industrial enterprises above designated size posted operating revenues of 99.20 trillion yuan in the same period, up 2.1 per cent year-on-year, and total profits of 522.816 billion yuan, down 3.5 per cent year-on-year.Overall, it was observed that the packaging and printing industry followed the same trend as the national packaging industry: the value of output increased, but profits declined.

The global packaging market is expected to reach US$1.14 trillion in 2024, while the output value of China's packaging industry is expected to reach RMB 2.5 trillion, accounting for about 25% of the global market.

As an important part of the packaging industry, China's packaging and printing industry accounts for more than 20% of the global market.With the booming development of the e-commerce industry, the demand for express packaging, food packaging and FMCG packaging continues to rise, opening up a broad market space for the packaging printing industry.We predict that the packaging printing industry will maintain a stable growth trend in the next few years.

In December 2021, commissioned by the state, the China Packaging Federation released the China Packaging Industry Development Plan (2021-2025), the "'14th Five-Year Plan" for China's packaging industry.The plan specifies specific requirements for the packaging and printing industry in several chapters.Among them, the "deepening industry innovation and collaboration" chapter stressed the need to promote cross-border innovation and cooperation with the chemical industry, paper, printing, equipment and other packaging-related industries, to accelerate the construction of upstream and downstream integration, multi-body synergistic industry chain cooperation and innovation mechanism.

For China's packaging and printing in the field of "key materials, major equipment, core technology" weaknesses, the planning requirements to increase the coordination of scientific and technological resource allocation in the industry, encouraging leading enterprises and universities, research institutes to set up industrial technology innovation consortiums to break through a number of "neck" technology, and launch a number of "neck" technology."technology, and launch a number of innovative products.

In the chapter of "New Intelligent Packaging Industry", the plan clearly puts forward the development of intelligent materials and processes based on conductive ink/fibre, printed electronics, RFID, etc., as well as the development of information-based intelligent labels such as Time-Temperature Indicator (TTI), Freshness Indicator, Integrity Indicator, Recycling Classification Indicator and other information-type intelligent labels, as well as the development of products with dynamic storage, real-time tracking and information feedback.We will also develop information-based smart labels such as time-temperature indicators (TTI), freshness indicators, integrity indicators, and recycling sorting indicators, as well as smart packaging products with dynamic storage, real-time tracking, and information feedback.In the chapter of "Supporting the development and promotion of smart products", the plan proposes to support the development of low-cost, flexible embedded environment-aware packaging smart components, smart labels, smart inks and other digital products, in order to help the development of smart packaging products.

To sum up, the packaging and printing industry has shown a good development trend in terms of market scale, technological innovation, competition pattern and industry chain synergy.In the future, affected by multiple factors such as the strengthening of environmental protection policies, changes in consumer demand and technological advances, the packaging and printing industry will move in the direction of green, personalised customisation, intelligent production, industrial integration and international development.Among them, the following two aspects are particularly critical:

1.Technology application and innovation

Digitalisation, automation, intelligence and artificial intelligence (AI) will be the core drivers of future development.

(1) Digitalisation: Digital printing technology is increasingly being used in the packaging and printing industry.With its high flexibility, ability to personalise and customise as well as short printing cycles, digital printing can meet the market's demand for small batches and diversified products.More and more packaging and printing enterprises have begun to introduce digital printing equipment to improve production efficiency and market competitiveness.

(2) Automation and Intelligent: Automation equipment and intelligent production systems are increasingly widely used in the packaging and printing industry.Automated production lines help to improve production efficiency, reduce labour costs and minimise errors, thus enhancing product quality and production efficiency.Intelligent production will be the future trend of the packaging and printing industry.Intelligent management and control of the production process is achieved through the introduction of artificial intelligence, big data, Internet of Things and other technologies.The integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning into workflow solutions can significantly improve the degree of automation and efficiency of the entire printing production process.In addition, intelligent production can also achieve remote monitoring and operation, which in turn improves the enterprise's production management level and ability to respond to emergencies.

(3) Artificial Intelligence: Artificial Intelligence will bring far-reaching changes and value to the packaging and packaging printing industry.With the continuous progress and improvement of artificial intelligence technology, it will bring us unprecedented development space and results.Artificial intelligence is mainly divided into two types: generative and predictive.Generative AI is capable of generating text, images or other media using models that learn patterns to create new data with similar characteristics, while predictive AI identifies patterns and predicts behaviours and future events through statistical analysis.

The use of AI in design is now beginning to show results, and the future is set to see an explosion of more designs done by AI, while creators who don't use AI for design may risk losing customers.In the future, AI assistants will be utilised to handle all aspects of sales channels, product descriptions, online sales, production and after-sales services, and any business area that machine learning can venture into.

2.Green & Low Carbon

With the continuous tightening of environmental protection policies, the packaging and printing industry will accelerate the development of green direction.Countries have increasingly strict environmental requirements for packaging and printing enterprises, and the enhancement of consumer environmental awareness has also prompted the industry to increase the research and development and application of green technology.Packaging and printing industry generally use environmentally friendly materials, water-based ink and biodegradable materials to reduce the negative impact on the environment.

At the same time, energy-saving and consumption-reducing production equipment and processes have also received extensive attention from enterprises.Enterprises need to increase R&D investment in environmentally friendly technologies and materials, adopt recyclable and biodegradable materials, and reduce waste emissions to meet increasingly stringent environmental standards.As consumers' attention to green products continues to rise, green packaging will become a mainstream trend in the market.

In 2023, the China Packaging Federation, together with the China National Institute of Standardization (CNIS) and the Saidi Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), jointly released the 2023 Packaging Blue Book, which comprehensively introduces the green development process of the packaging industry and shares practices and experiences of green and low-carbon development.

In order to better promote the green and low-carbon development of the industry, in December last year, China Packaging Federation also submitted two national standards, "Green Product Evaluation Requirements for Packaging Products" and "Methods for Quantifying the Carbon Footprint of Products for Packaging Products", to the National Standardisation Administration Committee for project application.This reflects the practical action of China Packaging Federation to lead the packaging industry to adhere to the direction of green development and implement the strategy of sustainable development.

In recent years, the state has issued a series of policies and regulations aimed at promoting "green, low-carbon and circular development".These policies and regulations have put forward higher requirements for the green transformation of the packaging industry, bringing challenges and opportunities.

For example, Asahi Kasei has been cultivating the flexographic printing field for many years, continuously promoting the marketisation and large-scale development of flexographic printing technology and products, and has made remarkable achievements in the field of paper packaging printing, which perfectly interprets the concept of green packaging.

China Packaging Federation hopes that the whole industry can highlight the leading role of green, low-carbon and recycling transformation in the deep transformation and sustainable development of the industry, accelerate the construction of a green development system covering the whole life cycle of packaging, significantly improve the level of green development, and effectively form a circular economy development model for the packaging industry.

At the same time, we should adhere to the principles of reform, opening up and win-win cooperation, not only adhere to the main line of green and high-quality development, but also pay attention to over-packaging, double carbon emissions, plastic restriction and banning of plastic, packaging waste recycling, and courier, take-away e-commerce, and other key areas, to grasp the initiative of future development.By keeping the right and innovation, seeking truth and pragmatism, we will make contributions to the packaging industry to fulfil the historical mission of the new era!