RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s import of plastic products increased 18 percent to 456,000 tons in the second quarter of 2022 from 386,000 tons in the same period last year, according to the General Authority for Statistics.
The increase in imports was fueled by a 45 percent yearly rise in imports from China, stated the GASTAT report.
Rubber products also saw a 12 percent increase from 152,000 to 170,000 units over the same period, pushed by a 14 percent increase in imports from China.
While the rise in the Kingdom’s plastic imports has been the highest since the second quarter of 2019, rubber has increased the most since the third quarter of 2019.
The total plastic and rubber imports grew 19 percent to SR7.1 billion ($1.89 billion) in the second quarter of 2022 from SR6 billion in the year-ago period.
The value of plastic imports increased 18 percent quarter on quarter from SR4 billion to SR4.8 billion, while rubber soared 23 percent from SR1.9 billion to SR2.4 billion.
Looking at the history of year-on-year changes in value, rubber has seen greater volatility compared to plastics.
However, this has not been the case in the second quarter of 2022, as the value of imported plastics shot up from 15 percent to 31 percent year on year compared to the 18 percent growth in rubber.
Spanning the data for the three years from the second quarter of 2019 to the second quarter of 2022, the value of plastics imports surged 40 percent while its volume increased by only 12 percent.
