If you listen to the daily news on TV, you’d think America is still mired in a recession. It certainly doesn’t feel that way in the plastics industry, one of the largest manufacturing sectors in the United States. At last month’s National Plastics Exposition, there was a boomy atmosphere in comparison with the previous show held in 2009. NPE2012 attracted 1,933 exhibitors, more than in each of the three previous NPEs. Several exhibitors commented in interviews that they were sold out, and developing backlogs.
In a discussion with the press, Helmar Franz, executive director and chief strategy officer of Haitian International (Ningbo, China), said that some Haitian customers are relocating business to North America for a variety of reasons, including labor costs in China and strong demand for injection molding machines in the United States.
Karen Laird, contributing editor for Plastics Today, gave an excellent European view in a report from a plastics show held this month in Milan, Italy to less than a crush of attendees. Eurozone financial problems are having a bruising effect on business. Investment is suffering.
She quotes Peter Neumann, CEO of Engel: “About 10 years ago, somewhere between six and seven thousand machines were being sold annually in total in the U.S. This dropped to 1400 a few years ago. Many manufacturers left the US market, as manufacturing was increasingly offshored. Now, however, that number is back up to 3000. People are slowly starting to realize they need to bring back production from overseas. They need to invest in manufacturing.”
So business is not as strong as it was 10 years ago. But it’s twice as strong as it was three years ago.
The Europeans are envious. And I’ll bet in many ways, the Chinese are as well.










