China's packaging industry is developing rapidly with an annual growth rate of over 18%, among which the production of corrugated paper packaging products, plastic woven bags, composite soft packaging, and metal drums has ranked among the top in the world. Data shows that the packaging industry has jumped from being the last of the 40 major industries in the national economy to now ranking 12th. The proportion of packaging industry output value in the total social output value has increased from 0.4% in the early 1980s to over 2% now. At the 6th National Congress of the China Packaging Technology Association held on the 18th, Han Jiazeng, Vice President of the China Packaging Technology Association, said that China's packaging industry provides supporting services for domestic goods with a total retail sales of consumer goods exceeding 4 trillion yuan and exported goods with a total export value of over 320 billion US dollars.
In the mid-1980s, the downstream industries of China's packaging industry generally had the concept of "heavy production, light packaging". The packaging industry itself was also very backward, with annual losses of up to 10 billion yuan due to packaging problems, causing significant economic losses to the country. At present, the packaging industry has basically adapted to the needs of national economic development. In 2002, the output value of China's packaging industry reached over 250 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 34 times compared to 1980. Packaging enterprises have grown from 2500 county-level or above enterprises in 1980 to over 20000 large-scale enterprises in 2002, with an increase in employees from 800000 in 1980 to 3.2 million in 2002.