PETpla.net Insider 11 / 2020

PETplanet Insider Vol. 21 No. 11/20 www.petpla.net 41 TRADE SHOW REVIEW PET Day 2020 - the webinar edition Since 2003, top managers, professionals and entrepreneurs in the international polyester industry have met in the Villa Medicea of Artimino, Tuscany, in Italy for the international PET Day. In April 2020, Mr Francesco Zanchi, CEO of GSI and organiser of the annual event, recognised that this year it would not be possible to hold the event as normal. So the team at GSI organised the 18 th PET Day, to be known as the fi rst webinar PET Day, held on October 1 st , 2020. The morning session started with Mr Paul Hodges , Chairman of International eChem, who gave his general over- view of economic trends and offered some food for thought as to what might happen to our world after the pandemic. He drew a picture of wealthy western world getting older and this means that consumption is decreasing dramati- cally. The proportion of the population over 55 years old will increase to more than 50% in 2030. Russia and China are poorer but they too are ageing societies. Consumption, in future, could grow fast mainly in Africa and South America, but fi rst they need money to spend. Hodges then compared the cur- rent economic downturn to that of 2007. “Today the economy reacts much more slowly, because it was slowing down even before Covid-19 hit,” he stated. Now, the behaviour needs to change in response to the pandemic. The polyester industry must follow. There is a the need to move away from providing ‘stuff’ and focus more on sus- tainability and affordability, for example intelligent and reusable packaging, cleanliness, renewable items and overall showing more fl exibility and leader- ship focused on stimulating creativity. The ‘economic super cycle of the baby Boomers’ is well and truly over; and the ‘New Normal’ is a demand-led, solution- oriented cycle. Mr Francesco Zanchi , praising Mr Hodges’ presentation, underlined the fact that it is a huge change we are going through, with re fi neries dis- appearing now and in the immediate future. Zanchi laid particular emphasis on the great social responsibility that entrepreneurs and managers must shoulder in these dif fi cult times. He then gave his in-depth analysis of the polyester industry and its status in the Covid era. Capacity utilisation rates are low right through the polyes- ter chain. Whether it’s PX or PTA or PSF, the situation is bleak. A number of new plants will begin operations throughout the chain creating an even bigger overcapacity in China and all over the world in 2021. Only one point is clear: that rPET will get bigger in this market because of regulations; all the major beverage and food brands are going at full speed to expand into re-usable packaging. Textile demand, which accounts for 70% of all world polyester, is down at least 30% since 2019, and that brings us to the ques- tion: when will raw materials produc- ers fi nally cut their output in line with actual market demand? Looking to the future, in 2021, in the hope that a vaccine for Covid-19 will be available, it is foreseeable that economies will return to some sort of normality in the second semester. Oil is likely to remain at the current levels, but we should expect PX, PTA and also PET to recover some ground and margins eventually. The afternoon session of the webi- nar opened up with a round-table dis- cussion among polyester producers. Mr Hemant Sharma , COO of Polyester Reliance Ind., India, gave a picture of how Reliance coped with the virus emergency in India, where they had to send home some 25,000 workers. They had to face major logistic problems around their country, with different states enforc- ing different pandemic measures. Business however continued, and it did well, especially in oil (Reliance is fully integrated), pharma and fi lms, all increased by 20% by June 2020, in comparison to 2019. Mr Jon McNaull , Global VP Poly- ester of Alpek, USA, indicated how during the spring, in the US, grocery business increased 12% while fresh food services shrunk dramatically. Consumers showed a much bigger need of packaged food. Textile and apparel shrunk by a dramatic 35%, as Americans switched consumption to home appliances and furnishing. In June sales of beverages got back to normal. It is dif fi cult today to predict what might happen in 2021. Mr Sam You ZhenYi , Yisheng PET Sales Director, China, said that