Respondents believe that downstream customers have high expectations for packaging material innovation, with a particular focus on enhancing product protection, functionality, and cost efficiency through material and technological innovations. Innovations in packaging equipment are also moving toward customization, flexibility, and intelligence to meet diverse production needs and boost the industry’s competitiveness.

With the improvement of global environmental protection awareness and the promotion of sustainable development policies, various industries in China are accelerating the advancement of low-carbon and environmental protection strategies, and green packaging is gradually becoming one of the important trends in the development of the packaging industry. Eighty percent of respondents believe that enterprises have set clear green environmental protection goals and are actively promoting their implementation. At the same time, the reduction of packaging materials, the application of degradable materials, and the promotion of recycling technologies are helping enterprises reduce resource consumption while achieving economic benefits.

The rapid development of digital technology has opened up broad application prospects for digital packaging. In the fields of brand promotion and consumer interaction, 88% of respondents believe that by combining digital packaging technology with big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and other technologies, enterprises can significantly improve production efficiency and product quality. In addition, 80% of respondents believe these technologies have enhanced targeted marketing based on big data, while 56% of respondents believe they have contributed to product anti-counterfeiting and traceability inquiries. Downstream enterprises are paying increasing attention to the application of intelligent equipment to respond to the diverse needs of the market and realize customized intelligent manufacturing.

Chinese packaging enterprises are actively expanding into the global market. In this survey, going global was one of the hot topics among local enterprises, with 87% of the surveyed local enterprises having expanded or planning to expand into overseas markets. Especially with the support of the "Belt and Road" Initiative, more and more enterprises are choosing to explore the international market through overseas mergers and acquisitions, investment in factory construction, and other methods. At the same time, foreign-funded packaging brands are also increasing their investment in local R&D and production in China, forming in-depth cooperation with Chinese enterprises. With the improvement of the technological capabilities of local enterprises, the localization process of China’s packaging industry has achieved remarkable results.