Overall Review Of Worldwide Chemical Production

In the U.S. there are 170 major chemical companies.They operate internationally with more than 2,800 facilities outside the U.S. and 1,700 foreign subsidiaries or affiliates operating. The U.S. chemical output is $750 billion a year. The U.S. industry records large trade surpluses and employs more than a million people in the United States alone. The chemical industry is also the second largest consumer of energy in manufacturing and spends over $5 billion annually on pollution abatement.

In Europe the chemical, plastics and rubber sectors are among the largest industrial sectors.Together they generate about 3.2 million jobs in more than 60,000 companies. Since 2000 the chemical sector alone has represented 2/3 of the entire manufacturing trade surplus of the EU.

in 2012 The chemical sector accounted for 12% of the EU manufacturing industry's added value. Europe remains world’s biggest chemical trading region with 43% of the world’s exports and 37%of the world’s imports, although the latest data shows that Asia is catching up with 34% of the exports and 37% of imports. Even so, Europe still has a trading surplus with all regions of the world except Japan and China where in 2011 there was a chemical trade balance. Europe’s trade surplus with the rest of the world today amounts to 41.7 billion Euros.

Over the 20 years between 1991 and 2011 the European Chemical industry saw its sales increase 295 billion Euros to 539 billion Euros a picture of constant growth. Despite this the European industry’s share of the world chemical market has fallen from 36% to 20%. This has resulted from the huge increase production and sales in the emerging markets like India and China. The data suggest that 95% of this impact is from China alone. In 2012 the data from the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC)shows that 5 European countries account for 71% of the EU's chemicals sales. These are Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy and the Netherlands.

The chemical industry has shown rapid growth for more than fifty years.The fastest-growing areas have involved the manufacture of synthetic organic polymersused as plastics, fibres and elastomers. Historically and presently the chemical industry has been concentrated in three areas of the world, Western Europe, North America and Japan (the Triad). The European Community remains the largest producer area followed by the US and Japan.

The traditional dominance of chemical production by the Triad countries is being challenged by changes in feedstock availability and price, labour cost, energy cost, differential rates of economic growth and environmental pressures. Instrumental in the changing structure of the global chemical industry has been the growth in China, India, Korea, the Middle East, South East Asia, Nigeria, and Brazil.
Source From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_industry