The “Three-Product” Strategy Guides Industrial Upgrading

In the packaging industry, the “Three Goods” refer to the variety, quality, and branding of packaging products. In 2018, the range of packaging product varieties will expand significantly, product quality will improve markedly, and efforts to cultivate strong packaging brands should be intensified.

In terms of packaging product variety, we must center on supply-side structural reform in the packaging industry. Building on the optimization of traditional product mixes and the strengthening of leading‑product advantages, we should proactively adapt to smart manufacturing models and diversified consumer demands, thereby enhancing our capacity to support consumption upgrading. By innovating design approaches, production processes, and technological solutions, we will vigorously develop new packaging materials, products, and equipment, driving both an expansion of product offerings and an improvement in supply‑side service capabilities. At the same time, we will prioritize the development of green, reusable, and high‑performance packaging materials; accelerate the advancement of networked, intelligent, and flexible integrated packaging systems; and vigorously promote functional, personalized, and customized mid‑to‑high‑end products. Through diversifying product lines and optimizing product structures, we will stimulate demand and fuel consumption.

In terms of packaging product quality, enterprises should be guided to comprehensively enhance product quality across all stages—design, material selection, production, testing, and management. On the one hand, low‑cost and green manufacturing technologies should be actively adopted to develop lightweight, high‑strength, functional paper packaging, expanding its range of applications. The use of environmentally friendly raw materials and additives should be encouraged to produce customizable, eco‑friendly plastic packaging, thereby strengthening the protective, shelf‑life‑extending, and smart functionalities of such products. On the other hand, the adoption of novel materials—such as thin‑walled metals, coated steel, and coated aluminum—for manufacturing metal packaging is advocated, with the aim of improving material utilization and corrosion resistance.

Packaging product brands should prioritize the research and development of green packaging materials, intelligent packaging equipment, and high-end packaging products, with the aim of establishing a portfolio of brands that command significant domestic market share and strong international competitiveness in the fields of packaging materials, packaging equipment, and packaging products.

　　Technological innovation enhances competitiveness.

Addressing the enhancement of the quality and efficiency of economic development is a crucial component of bolstering the competitiveness of the packaging industry. At its core, this requires placing innovation at the forefront, comprehensively strengthening the industry’s capabilities in independent innovation, integrated innovation, and the ability to introduce, digest, absorb, and re‑innovate, while focusing on overcoming bottlenecks in key common technologies.

Building an innovation system. The focus is on implementing a plan to enhance the packaging industry’s innovation capacity, guiding enterprises to establish mechanisms for R&D investment and effectively strengthening their capabilities in original and integrated innovation. Efforts will be made to optimize the allocation of scientific and technological resources, actively foster national-level technology innovation centers in the packaging sector, and prioritize the development of technology innovation alliances, collaborative innovation centers, and platforms for incubating scientific and technological achievements—along with facilities for promoting and applying research outcomes, providing public technical services, and facilitating technology and intellectual property transactions. At the same time, by establishing upstream–downstream technology collaboration networks, industry‑wide collaborative innovation centers, and demonstration bases for industry–university–research cooperation, a mechanism for jointly cultivating and sharing innovative talent will be put in place.

Breakthrough key technologies. Focusing on critical technologies in the fields of green packaging, safe packaging, and smart packaging, develop systematic technical solutions to foster the incubation, application, and dissemination of major scientific and technological achievements. Accelerate the establishment of a cloud-based packaging design database, prioritize lightweighting and eco‑design, and intensify research, development, and deployment of technologies for the comprehensive recycling and reuse of packaging waste, thereby comprehensively elevating the level of green packaging application and innovation. Specifically address technical bottlenecks such as the identification of harmful substances and the detection of their migration in food and pharmaceutical packaging, significantly enhancing the safety assurance capabilities of packaging for food, pharmaceuticals, and military products. Emphasize the integration of packaging design with information technology and advance the intelligentization of production processes.

Strengthen demonstration applications. Implement the High-End Packaging Products Project, launching a series of major initiatives focused on packaging design innovation, process optimization, and industrialization. Actively develop materials such as lightweight, high-strength paper, bio-based high-barrier plastics, corrosion-resistant ultra-thin metals, and lightweight, energy-efficient glass, with an emphasis on creating personalized, customized, precision‑crafted, and intelligent high-end packaging products. Implement the Packaging Industry Informatization Project, initiating key programs like packaging big data and industrial cloud, promoting critical information‑technology solutions such as smart labels and intelligent terminals, and carrying out integrated innovation and engineering‑application demonstrations that deeply integrate next‑generation packaging informatization with industrialization. Implement the Intelligent Packaging Equipment Project, prioritizing the development of major smart manufacturing systems—including automated packaging lines for food and pharmaceuticals, integrated manufacturing equipment for packaging printing, and fully automated packaging systems for modern logistics—and vigorously advancing demonstration projects for smart factories and digital workshops in the packaging sector.

　　Green Production: Building a Circular System

For the packaging industry, embracing green principles means fully implementing the overarching requirement in the 13th Five-Year Plan to “resolutely oppose excessive packaging,” as well as the specific goal outlined in the Guiding Opinions on the Transformation and Development of the Packaging Industry to “shift from traditional production to green production.”

Develop green packaging materials, accelerate the independent R&D of environmentally friendly, high-performance packaging materials, and create a portfolio of key materials that fill domestic gaps, thereby overcoming bottlenecks in the application and industrialization of green and high‑performance packaging. Conduct research to formulate relevant standards for green packaging materials, establish an eco‑friendly evaluation system for material selection, promote the commercialization of green packaging technologies, and progressively advance the goal of non‑toxic, harmless packaging throughout its entire life cycle. Advocate the use of single‑material construction in packaging to reduce reliance on composite materials that are difficult to sort and recycle.

Meanwhile, leveraging biodegradable and recyclable materials as base substrates, we will develop a series of environmentally friendly food and pharmaceutical packaging materials that exhibit excellent compatibility with their contents, thereby enhancing the safety of such packaging. We will also break new ground in low‑carbon manufacturing technologies for industrial packaging materials, promote novel packaging materials with superior integrated protective performance and capable of being regenerated and reused, and bolster the reliability of industrial packaging. In addition, we will foster deep integration between the military and civilian sectors within the packaging materials industry, driving the green transformation and upgrading of packaging materials for specialized applications.

In addition, the packaging industry should promote simplified, reduced‑weight, reusable, and precision‑oriented packaging design technologies; actively adopt green packaging materials that are high‑quality, low in resource and energy consumption, have minimal impacts on human health and the environment, and are easy to recycle; intensify research and development of key green packaging materials, technologies, equipment, processes, and products; vigorously advance the application of environmentally friendly composite technologies such as solvent‑free and water‑based adhesives; and encourage the use of advanced printing processes—like flexographic printing—that generate low (or zero) VOC emissions. Priority should be given to developing and scaling up technologies for modifying and remanufacturing waste plastics, recycling and reusing waste (crushed) glass, separating composite materials such as paper–aluminum–plastic, and automatically identifying, sorting, and deinking waste paper (as well as metals and plastics), thereby fostering the circular utilization of packaging waste and driving a greener transformation of production practices. Accordingly, efforts should be strengthened to establish demonstration projects for green manufacturing enterprises and industrial parks, build a number of model bases for green transformation, and cultivate a group of leading, widely influential, and competitively strong key enterprises, large enterprise groups, and industrial clusters.