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On August 29, 2025, the Ministry of Commerce of China issued a ruling on the final review of anti-dumping measures, deciding to continue to impose anti-dumping duties on imported phenol originating in the United States, the European Union, South Korea, Japan and Thailand for five years.
On August 29, 2025, the Ministry of Commerce of China issued a ruling on the final review of anti-dumping measures, deciding to continue to impose anti-dumping duties on imported phenol originating in the United States, the European Union, South Korea, Japan and Thailand for five years. The continuation of this policy will profoundly affect the global phenol supply chain pattern and bring new challenges and opportunities to overseas chemical enterprises.
since China first implemented phenol anti-dumping measures in September 2019, the global trade pattern of phenol has fundamentally changed. U.S. companies face a high tax rate of 244.3-287.2 percent, the EU corporate tax rate of 30.4 percent, South Korean companies 12.5-23.7 percent, Japanese companies 19.3-27.0 percent, and Thai companies 10.6-28.6 percent. These traditional suppliers have basically withdrawn from the Chinese market.
Customs data show that Saudi Arabia has become the absolute leader of China's phenol imports, accounting for 43% in 2024. The Middle East has become the biggest beneficiary by virtue of its cost advantage and geographical convenience. In contrast, the market share of traditional chemical powers is almost zero, creating huge market opportunities for phenol producers in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and other regions.
despite policy barriers, China remains the world's most attractive consumer market for phenol. In 2024, China's apparent consumption of phenol reached 5.6196 million tons, up 23.28 percent year-on-year, mainly driven by the rapid expansion of downstream bisphenol A production capacity. This growth trend provides significant business opportunities for qualified overseas suppliers.
For overseas companies, establishing cooperative relations with major suppliers such as Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Taiwan, or setting up production bases in these regions, has become an important strategy for entering the Chinese market.
China's phenol industry is experiencing the differentiation of scale and efficiency. The national phenol production capacity will reach 6.35 million tons in 2024, and it is expected to increase by 995000 tons in 2025, and the industrial scale will exceed 14 million tons by 2030. However, the scale expansion has not led to an improvement in profitability, with the theoretical profit margin of phenolic ketone plants falling from 33% in 2010 to minus 7% in 2025, and the industry is facing a serious profitability crisis.
The price data further confirmed the industry's dilemma: phenol prices fell from an all-time high of more than 13000 yuan/ton in 2010 to the current range of 6400-10000 yuan/ton, a cumulative decline of 49%. This downward price pressure not only affects phenol, acetone, pure benzene, propylene and other related products are showing the same weakness, indicating that the entire industry chain is facing systemic challenges.
the operating rate data reveal the deep contradictions in the industry: between 2020 and 2025, the operating rate of China's phenolic plant fell from 85% to 66%, and although it is expected to rise to 72% in 2025, it is still far below the ideal level. Idle capacity not only causes waste of resources, but also reflects the fundamental problem of imbalance between supply and demand structure.
A number of recent major projects will be put into production, including:
These projects mostly adopt the "phenolic ketone-bisphenol A- polycarbonate" integration model, which shows that Chinese enterprises are enhancing their competitiveness through the extension of the industrial chain.
although China's phenol industry is large in scale, there is still room for improvement in high-end technology and product differentiation. Overseas enterprises can participate in the process of industrial upgrading in the Chinese market through technology licensing and joint ventures. Especially in the fields of environmental protection technology, process optimization, high-end applications, international advanced experience has important value.
as China's external dependence declines from 20.05 per cent in 2020 to 4.38 per cent in 2024, China is shifting from a net importer to a net exporter. Overseas companies should re-evaluate their deployment strategies in the Asia-Pacific region and consider establishing production bases in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other regions, which can serve the Chinese market and radiate other growth markets.
bisphenol A is the largest downstream application of phenol, and its demand growth mainly comes from high-end materials such as polycarbonate (PC). Overseas enterprises can pay attention to cooperation opportunities in new energy vehicles, electronic equipment, high-end manufacturing and other fields, and realize value chain upgrading through application-side cooperation.
Although the continuation of the anti-dumping policy has raised the entry threshold for some overseas enterprises, it has also created a larger market share for qualified enterprises. The key is to choose the right market entry strategy, through technological innovation, industrial integration and regional layout optimization, to obtain sustainable development opportunities in China, the world's largest phenol market.
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