Innovations target fast-growing sectors

The Asia Pacific region continues to face bright prospects in 2012 with emerging economies showing significant growth and industrial development. Even with the impact of the downturn in the US and European Union as well as some internal challenges, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) still expects Asia to grow by an average of 6.7% in 2012. But the IMF warned of “macroeconomic and financial” spillovers to Asia as a result of the eurozone crisis that it would be advantageous for Asia to develop stronger engines of domestic growth.  
The IMF expects emerging Asian economies to post 8% gross-domestic-product (GDP) growth in 2012. This forecast includes the South Asian subcontinent and excludes Japan. The “newly industrialised economies” of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan are expected to grow by 4.7%, whilst China will continue to move ahead with a projected 9% growth in 2012, and 7.5% for India. Japan is expected to expand by 2.3% but spending for earthquake and tsunami reconstruction will boost growth.
Developing countries in Asia are still seen outpacing the rest of the developing world in 2012 onward. At the same time, Central Asia is projected to remain robust with projected 6.2% growth.  The IMF further said that Asian economies could further boost domestic demand by increasing public spending on infrastructure, and most have the fiscal ability to do so Indonesia, Korea and Malaysia. 
Accelerating infrastructure investment is also one of the recommendations of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to Asia and the Pacific to sustain growth. Asia’s booming economies have been supported by the rapid rollout of new infrastructure but these will require investments of about $8 trillion until 2020. In this case, support from the private sector is needed and governments must put in place policy reforms to encourage international and domestic investors, as well as public-private-partnerships.
ADB expects developing Asia to post 7.5% in 2012 due to buoyant domestic demand and intraregional trade.  Many countries in the region are well placed to cope with the global crisis. ADB sees the East Asian region to grow the fastest in 2012, followed by South Asia.  
This issue carries the insights of industry experts from leading companies and how they look at the Asia Pacific region in 2012, as well as their plans as gathered by the editorial team of International Plastics News for Asia.

Global demand for plastics processing machinery is forecast to rise by 4.7% annually through 2012 to over $25 billion, based on a study by the Freedonia Group. Demand in the Asia-Pacific for plastics processing machinery is on the rise and will surpass demand in developed countries. This is due to such factors as steady economic growth, increased focus on industrialisation, and rising per capita income level. China is emerging as major player in the plastics processing machinery across the world with nearly 25% of the global market, whilst India and Russia are expected to register robust gains.  Extrusion equipment will post the strongest gains of any major product type through 2012, benefitting from  growth in global construction spending.

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