The total output value of China's packaging industry reached US$50 billion last year, up 22.4 percent year on year, said Shi Wanpeng, president of the China Packaging Federation, on Wednesday.

Addressing the opening ceremony of the World Packaging Conference 2006, Shi said that China's packaging industry was listed as the 14th in terms of total output value out of 42 major industries in 2005, accounting for 2.2 percent of the country's social output value.

This is a sharp contrast to its ranking in the first half of the 1980s, Shi said. As an independent industry with complete packaging product categories, China's packaging industry has three major distributing areas - the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River area, he said.

Despite the inspiring figures of the industry, there is still a large gap between China's packaging industry and that of developed countries in terms of packaging facilities and materials, Shi said.

He said that the industry can learn from international exchanges and cooperation in order to boost its own technologies and innovation.

He suggested that the industry should put more emphasis on new high-technologies and seek further development on the basis of energy-saving and environment protection.

(Xinhua News Agency April 20, 2006)