Mikhail Katsevman: “Plastics are as popular as steel”

Head of Research and Development of R&P POLYPLASTIC Mikhail Katsevman presented a long-term plastics industry 2025 Development Plan. He opened the major Interplastica 2018 Conference “Polymer Plaza” with an analytical report. According to the expert, polymer processing today accounts to approximately 20% of the whole chemical sector in Russia. 180 thousand people are involved in the industry and the annual import rate exceeds export by several times.   

Compared to Europe, plastics products per capita consumption in Russia is only 48 kilos. In Europe this rate can reach 80 kilos. The expert is certain that this is due to the fact of low GDP in Russia.  However, according to forecasts GDP, growth will be very rapid and by 2025 per capita consumption will reach 71 kilos annually.

This optimistic forecast can be proved by the fact that today volume of plastic production can be compared with the volume of steel production. At this point, the main industry problem evolves. “Producers of virgin polymers can only satisfy 80% of the demand. Processors have to buy the remaining 20% abroad”, told Mr. Katsevman. He added that in times of dynamic growth of the industry after a few years of stagnation “we should fix this weakness”.

Summing up the speech, Mr. Katsevman made a point of bringing the plastic procession chain from feedstock supply to personnel training in line.