Polycarbonate Trade Analysis
- Satit Vaewvichit
- Oct 4
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 4
Global Polycarbonate Trade Analysis Summary
The polycarbonate trade landscape over the past decade was characterized by Southeast Asia and Western Europe as leading exporters, though both saw declining export volumes towards 2024. The Middle East, after a period of growing net exports, became a net importer by the end of the period. Northeast Asia underwent the most substantial change, shifting from the largest net importer to a significant net exporter. Meanwhile, the Indian Subcontinent, Central and Eastern Europe, and South America continued as principal importers, with most regions seeing rising import volumes.
The polycarbonate trade in 2024 was characterized by strong export leadership from Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and Western Europe, both in terms of scale and diversity of trading partners. Intra-regional trade, especially within Western Europe, Northeast Asia, and Southeast Asia, represented a significant portion of the total flows, reflecting established regional supply chains alongside robust inter-regional exports to major consuming regions such as India, China, and Mexico.
The principal origins included South Korea, the United States, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and the Netherlands, which acted as the primary sources of outbound polycarbonate flows. Major transit hubs—Belgium, Italy, Malaysia, Japan, Poland, and Hungary—channeled and redistributed substantial volumes between these origins and the end markets. The largest destinations encompassed China, Germany, Mexico, Canada, Poland, and the United Kingdom, each absorbing considerable volumes of polycarbonate through direct or hub-mediated trade streams.
Global polycarbonate prices saw a general upward trend from 2015 to 2024, moving within a broad range of approximately one thousand eight hundred seventy-eight to three thousand eight hundred seventy-two USD per metric ton. Prices across all regions fluctuated year by year. The market’s overall trajectory indicated a rise from the mid-2010s, peaking around 2021–2022 in most regions, and then moderating in the subsequent years. Looking forward, the latest figures for 2024 suggested that prices remained elevated compared to early years.
Sea transport constituted the primary means of moving polycarbonate globally in 2024, especially in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia with the highest trade volumes. Road and railway transport were particularly relevant in Western Europe and North America, while air and other methods only contributed marginally to the total polycarbonate trade across all regions.
The global transportation cost analysis for polycarbonate during 2020-2024 revealed notable variations across different trade routes. The average cost was based on weighted average CIF-FOB price differences from bilateral trades between exporting and importing countries, amounting to 144 USD per metric ton. This figure represented the overall weighted average cost across all reported regions.
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