Major Events in China's EVA Plastic Industry in H1 2025

In January and February 2025, two pivotal policies affecting the photovoltaic (PV) market demand were successively released: Measures for the Administration of Distributed Photovoltaic Power Generation Development and Construction and Notice on Deepening the Market-Oriented Reform of New Energy On-Grid Tariffs to Promote High-Quality Development of New Energy. These new policies set "new-old project segmentation" timelines for PV projects as April 30 and May 31 respectively, ensuring a smooth transition of existing projects.

Driven by this, the demand for rush PV installations grew rapidly, stimulating price increases across the industrial chain and boosting enterprises' production scheduling and shipments. From January to May 2025, the newly added PV installed capacity reached 197.85 GW, with a year-on-year growth rate of nearly 150%. The single-month installed capacity in May hit 93 GW, and the first-half installed capacity far exceeded the 216.3 GW of new annual installed capacity in 2023. In 2024, China's total new PV installed capacity was 278 GW, while the installed capacity in May 2025 alone was equivalent to that of four months in 2024. Behind the surge in May's installed capacity, the industry has begun to worry about potential overdraw of PV installation demand in the second half of the year, which may pose more severe challenges to the manufacturing industry chain.

In Q1, supported by strong PV demand, the domestic EVA market saw prices rise steadily and then fluctuate at a high level. With the price increase, profits of the domestic EVA industry continued to recover. In March, the average gross profit of the EVA industry reached 2,239 yuan/ton, up 33.12% month-on-month and down 1.93% year-on-year, marking the highest level since H2 2024.

From January to June 2025, the output of domestic EVA plants reached 1.3144 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 29.76%. In H1, the capacity utilization rate of domestic EVA plants hit 85.09%, up 3.12% year-on-year and 5.14% month-on-month, remaining at a high level.

In recent years, China's EVA production capacity has grown rapidly. Driven by the release of new capacity, strong industry profits, and concentrated release of downstream PV demand, domestic EVA output surged in 2025, hitting a new historical high. With the continuous growth of domestic supply, China's EVA self-sufficiency rate has improved significantly, squeezing import shares and expanding export channels. As a result, import dependence has dropped noticeably, while export dependence has shown an upward trend.

From January to May, cumulative EVA exports reached 118,400 tons, a year-on-year increase of 19.35%. Among them, exports in May rose to 27,400 tons, up 17.09% year-on-year and 9.16% month-on-month, setting a new historical high for monthly exports.

According to customs data, domestic EVA imports from January to May 2025 totaled 334,300 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 14.99%, with monthly imports showing a downward trend. Imports hit a low of 60,000 tons in January, down 45.75% year-on-year, while the highest monthly imports in March were 72,500 tons, down 25.03% year-on-year, indicating a significant decline in import volume.