Under the Mexico, United States and Canada Treaty (T-MEC), the plastic manufacturing industry is key to the “boom” in the production of electric cars, said the Mexican National Association of Plastic Industries (Anipac).
Aldimir Torres, president of the organization, commented that for this year this sector expects a growth of between 4 and 6 percent.
He stressed that the data is “positive” after the behavior in previous years has been negative due to various factors such as the ban on single-use plastic products.
He highlighted that auto parts for the automotive sector is the third most important segment of the plastics industry, since it represents 8.5 percent of total consumption and is expected to represent 10 percent in 2026, mainly due to automotive industry projects for manufacture electric cars in the country.
“We are in a production boom for electric cars and Mexico is key in these T-MEC options to provide this kind of material,” he said.
He added that the sector observes a situation in which the consumption of plastics amounts to 5.9 million tons each year, while production is only 3.8 million tons per year.
“We have a deficit in Mexico of 54 percent, we import a very important volume of what we are producing,” he said.
He noted that this data is in line with what is happening in the industry, since the consumption of containers, packaging and packaging currently represents 45 percent of the total consumption of plastics, branches that may have a moderate growth of 2.8 percent by 2026.
Torres commented that Mexico is the leader in the collection of PET in Latin America, since it recovers 59 percent of the dry bottles of this material that are placed on the market for recycling.
He pointed out that according to the Third Report of the National Agreement for the New Plastic Economy in Mexico, the goal of eliminating added microplastics has been met.
According to Anipac, the goal of having a 20 percent content of recycled material has been reached four years earlier and the investments of the companies that report on social responsibility, collection and recycling projects have increased significantly.
For more information about ANIPAC please visit: https://anipac.org.mx