Global demand for packaging machinery is projected to advance 6.5% per annum through 2019 to $52.5 billion. Product sales will be driven by market growth in China and other industrializing nations, where demand for processed food and beverage products and other manufactured goods is expected to post the strongest increases as personal incomes and consumer spending rise. This will result in additional investment in new manufacturing capacity and related packaging machinery in the Asia/Pacific region, the Africa/Mideast region, Eastern Europe, and Central and South America. China alone is expected to account for one-fourth of all new product demand gains through 2019. According to analyst Gleb Mytko, “Food and beverage markets are forecast to account for 55 percent of all new packaging machinery demand generated between 2014 and 2019.” Demand for labeling and coding machines and for filling and form/fill/seal equipment is forecast to grow more than seven percent per annum during the 2014-2019 period. These and other trends are presented in World Packaging Machinery, a new study from The Freedonia Group, Inc., a Cleveland-based industry research firm.

The large, mature North American and West European packaging machinery markets are forecast to register solid gains. Product sales in the US and Germany, the two largest markets in these regions, are expected to moderate after advancing roughly nine percent per annum between 2009 and 2014. In Japan, the world’s third largest national market behind China and the US, demand for packaging equipment will rebound after declining during the previous five-year period, largely due to a 2014 drop in product sales from post-recession market peaks hit in 2012 and 2013. Manufacturing activity in North America, Western Europe, and Japan is projected to increase and drive fixed investment spending gains going forward. Consumer spending in these areas will also rise as economic conditions improve further, encouraging suppliers to boost production and invest in new packaging equipment. Firms in developed parts of the world will also increase output because of new export opportunities.