The growth rate of plastics at the consumption of 165 million tons in 2003 continues to outperform the World GDP growth even after 60 years of commercial usage.
Packaging sector is by far the most largest consumer of plastics, consuming more than 40% of plastics at about 65 million tons. Films/sheets/containers are the major plastics products that can be seen any where around the World. The building and construction sectors consuming pipes, profiles etc consume almost 30 million tons. Both these sectors almost account for more than 55% of the plastic consumption. The other sectors continue to grow well but cannot match with the higher levels of consumption of packaging and building/construction sectors.

The World plastic consumption pattern for 2003 is summarized below: