China's Tinplate Industry Sees 140 Billion Yuan Market Opportunity Driven by Policies and Environmental Protection

Since 2025, fueled by the dual impetus of the global packaging industry's green transition and adjustments in international trade policies, China's tinplate industry has achieved leapfrog development. Its market scale is expected to exceed 140 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 12.0%, making it a core growth driver in the metal packaging sector. This traditional material is reshaping the industry landscape during the packaging transformation period, leveraging policy dividends, environmental advantages, and technological breakthroughs.

Structural adjustments in policies have injected strong momentum into tinplate exports. The United States recently eliminated the 0.5% anti-dumping duty on Chinese tinplate; coupled with China's 13% export tax rebate policy, the comprehensive cost of domestic tinplate exported to the US is 22% lower than that of plastic packaging, significantly enhancing its international competitiveness. Although Indonesia still maintains a tariff barrier of 6.1% to 7.4%, demand in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East continues to rise. In 2024, China's tinplate export volume reached 850,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 8.9%, with exports to Southeast Asia accounting for 42% of the total. Meanwhile, after the official implementation of the EU's PPWR regulation, the cost of plastic packaging has surged by 40%. In contrast, tinplate, with a high recycling rate of 96%, has become the only exempt category, successfully avoiding carbon tariff risks and further opening up channels to high-end markets.

Environmental compliance has become the core competitiveness of tinplate in replacing plastic. As a 100% recyclable material, tinplate requires no complex classification during recycling, can be directly melted and recycled without generating hazardous waste, and fully complies with the global "dual carbon" goals and the requirements of China's Guiding Opinions on the Green Development of the Metal Packaging Industry. This advantage is particularly prominent in the food packaging field. In 2024, food-grade tinplate accounted for 65% of the overall market. It is expected that its market scale will exceed 85 billion yuan in 2025, with a year-on-year growth of 13.3%, realizing large-scale replacement of plastic in high-end packaging scenarios such as canned food and milk powder.

Technological breakthroughs have laid the foundation for the high-quality development of the industry. Domestic enterprises have achieved mass production of chromium-free passivation technology; their products have obtained FDA certification, with a salt spray resistance test exceeding 1,000 hours, leading the industry in anti-rust performance. In the field of core processes, the independently developed MSA high-speed tin plating process has broken the technological monopoly of American enterprises, realized domestic substitution, and obtained a national invention patent, effectively addressing the cost pressure caused by the global shortage of tin resources. Shougang Jingtang has even successfully made breakthroughs in the production technology of extra-thick tinplate with a thickness of 0.6mm, overcoming challenges in welding accuracy and tension control, and expanding its application scenarios from packaging to high-end fields such as auto parts and industrial electronics.

From the perspective of market structure, the industry's concentration has continued to increase. Leading enterprises such as Baosteel, Angang, and Magang hold a combined market share of over 50%. Among them, Baosteel's output reached 1.2 million tons in 2024, accounting for nearly 30% of the national total. With the acceleration of industrialization in central and western China, the traditional core regions in East China and South China, together with the emerging markets in central and western China, have formed a complementary pattern, promoting the balanced development of the industry. Industry experts point out that supported by policies, environmental protection, and technology, the tinplate industry is shifting from "scale expansion" to "quality improvement" and is expected to achieve material upgrading breakthroughs in more industrial fields in the future.