In recent years, China's packaging industry has made significant progress, with an annual compound growth rate of 16% from 2013 to 2017. However, in terms of variety, quality, new product development capabilities, and economic benefits, there are gaps compared to developed countries. Industry experts believe that promoting industry transformation and upgrading through technological innovation is the top priority for future industry development——
      Packaging, as a carrier and protector of products, has become an important component of commodities. With the rise of technologies such as cloud computing, mobile internet, and the    Internet of Things, small packaging boxes not only display relevant text and image information for products, but also enable data collection, product traceability and anti-counterfeiting, and full tracking through mobile phone scanning. Moreover, interactive communication with consumers can be achieved through technologies such as augmented reality... Technological innovation is leading the traditional packaging industry towards transformation and upgrading. According to industry insiders, by the end of the 13th Five Year Plan period, the total output value of China's packaging industry is expected to reach 2.5 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 6.79%. Among them, the output value of the paper packaging industry will exceed 900 billion yuan.
Transformation and upgrading are urgent
      "In the field of packaging industry applications, consumer goods are the most widely used downstream industry, and the packaging industry is closely related to the total retail sales of consumer goods in society." Wang Huajun, Chairman of Shenzhen Yutong Packaging Technology Co., Ltd., introduced. From 2013 to 2017, the annual compound growth rate of the total retail sales of consumer goods in China exceeded 10%. During the same period, the annual compound growth rate of China's packaging industry was 16%. In the first half of 2017, the revenue of paper packaging enterprises above designated size increased by 14%, and the total profit increased by 14%.
      In terms of total quantity, although China has become a major packaging country, there are gaps compared to developed countries in terms of variety, quality, new product research and development capabilities, and economic benefits. The reporter learned from the interview that on the one hand, China's packaging industry has problems such as small enterprise scale, low-level repetitive construction, and low industrial concentration. Currently, the industry is developing towards intensification. From the perspective of industrial layout, China's packaging industry has formed three major industrial belts: the Pearl River Delta centered around Guangdong, the Yangtze River Delta centered around Shanghai and Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the       Bohai Rim centered around Beijing and Tianjin. According to the annual Top 100 Chinese Printing Enterprises list published by the Printing Manager magazine, the number of enterprises located in the three major industrial belts among the top 100 enterprises has remained stable at around 70%, with their sales accounting for nearly 80%.
      On the other hand, the overall packaging products in China still have a shortage of varieties, low quality, and low technological content; The product structure is unreasonable, and the main high-end packaging equipment and raw materials heavily rely on imports; Insufficient investment in research and development of packaging science and technology, and insufficient innovation capability; The low recycling rate of packaging waste and other issues.
      Looking at the history of China's packaging industry, it is not difficult to find that although many enterprises achieve technological innovation and economic benefits through technological transformation, technology introduction, and new product development, due to the lack of long-term and sustained independent innovation ability, once technological innovation is imitated by competitors, they will fall back into difficulties. Wang Huajun believes that timely formation of technological innovation
      Looking at the history of China's packaging industry, it is not difficult to find that although many enterprises achieve technological innovation and economic benefits through technological transformation, technology introduction, and new product development, due to the lack of long-term and sustained independent innovation ability, once technological innovation is imitated by competitors, they will fall back into difficulties. Wang Huajun believes that timely forming technological innovation capabilities, improving technological innovation mechanisms, and promoting industry transformation and upgrading are the key to promoting the development of China's packaging industry in the coming years and even longer.
Intelligent packaging is the trend
      At the end of 2016, the China Packaging Federation released the "13th Five Year Plan for the Development of China's Packaging Industry", which clearly proposed four key areas for the development of the packaging industry, namely promoting the sustainable development of green packaging, deepening the development of safe packaging, promoting the rapid development of intelligent packaging, and promoting breakthrough development in key areas.
      The so-called intelligent packaging mainly refers to the use of technologies such as cloud computing, mobile internet, and the Internet of Things to collect product information on product packaging using QR codes, invisible watermarks, digital watermarks, dot matrix technology, RFID electronic tags, etc., and then build a smart IoT big data platform to achieve product anti-counterfeiting, traceability, mobile marketing, brand promotion, and other functions.
      In October 2017, Yutong Technology, as one of the initiators, joined forces with more than 40 enterprises and institutions to establish the International Federation of Printing, Electronics and Intelligent Packaging Industries. It is committed to promoting the industrialization and application of intelligent packaging at home and abroad. By integrating resources from the intelligent packaging industry chain and collaborating on the development of typical intelligent packaging applications, Yutong Technology aims to promote the popularization, marketization, and application standard development of intelligent packaging.
      Thanks to the continuous development of intelligent technology, packaging is no longer solely responsible for protecting goods, but has become a bridge for the interconnection of all things. The functionality and value of the packaging industry in the information age are being repositioned. "Using packaging as a carrier and through digital and intelligent technology, packaging visualization can be achieved, which can help promote the visualization and efficiency of supply chain management. According to Wang Huajun, Yutong Technology has been committed to innovation in intelligent packaging technology in recent years. Through intelligent and digital technology applications such as QR codes, hidden watermarks, TTI tags, intelligent sensors, and Beidou Global Positioning, it collects information from multiple stages of commodity circulation." Building a smart IoT big data platform to turn packaging into a true carrier of the Internet of Things, continuously enhancing the added value of packaging in anti-counterfeiting traceability, intelligent positioning, information decision-making, consumer experience, mobile marketing, brand promotion, cultural dissemination, and other aspects, laying a solid technical foundation for supply chain visualization and efficient management.
In May of this year, Yutong Technology, with the assistance of Shiyan Street, Bao'an District, Shenzhen, became the only sub venue of the 14th China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industry Expo and Trade Fair organized by an enterprise in Bao'an District. It comprehensively showcased its intelligent packaging technology, including dot matrix, visual code, invisible code, etc., including environmentally friendly packaging products such as fully degradable plastics, pulp molding, and environmentally friendly ink development. It also showcased surface finishing, micro lens 3D printing Various new products have been developed in the field of packaging materials such as digital printing, which has attracted widespread attention from all sectors of society.
Green environmental protection moving towards the future
      With the increasing awareness of environmental protection among the people, as well as the increasing attention of the government, society, and printing and packaging enterprises to environmental protection, green and environmentally friendly packaging will be the only way for printing and packaging enterprises to achieve sustainable development through technological innovation and intelligent development.
      In December 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Commerce clearly proposed in the Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Transformation and Development of China's Packaging Industry to build an industrial technology innovation system around green packaging, safety packaging, and intelligent packaging, and to form a green production system covering the entire life cycle of packaging, focusing on clean production and green development.
      Especially with the rapid development of the logistics and express delivery industry, the extensive use of disposable express packaging and non degradable sealing tape has brought a huge burden to the environment. According to statistics, the volume of express delivery business in China reached 40 billion pieces in 2017, and the total length of the tape used for packaging express delivery can circle the equator of the Earth 425 times. However, the actual recycling rate of cardboard and plastic is less than 10%, and the overall recycling rate of packaging materials is less than 20%. Data shows that in mega cities in China, the increase in express packaging waste accounts for 93% of the increase in household waste, and in some large cities, this number has also reached 85% to 90%.
      "Focusing on the core elements of green packaging such as reduction, recycling, and recycling, actively adopting moderate packaging solutions that are material saving, easy to recycle, and scientifically reasonable is the current development direction for packaging users and packaging enterprises." Wang Huajun believes that taking express boxes as an example, the new type of environmentally friendly and anti-theft packaging paper box without tape developed by Yutong Technology not only does not require tape sealing, but also can be easily packaged in just 10 seconds, The fully enclosed box design increases its load-bearing capacity by 5 times, effectively reducing damage to items during transportation.
      Several industry experts have stated that in order to achieve sustainable development in the packaging industry, accelerating the research and innovation of new materials, enhancing the self innovation ability of packaging enterprises, and developing new products with high-tech and applicable technologies are of utmost importance. Taking Yutong Technology as an example, the company already has mature production technology in environmental packaging, including fresh-keeping packaging and fully biodegradable plastic bags. The self-developed biodegradable express plastic bags can completely self degrade within 6 months after being discarded, and can be widely used in various types of products such as tableware, shopping bags, express packaging bags, etc. Some packaging products have been widely used in the origin of fresh produce, fresh e-commerce, and logistics e-commerce.