For more than 30 years, China's packaging industry has experienced the development from scratch, from small to large. Nowadays, China is already the second largest packaging country in the world with an annual industrial output value of more than 1.2 trillion yuan. The output of packaged products ranks first in the world. Among the 42 industrial sectors in the national economy, the total output value of the packaging industry rose to the 14th from the penultimate place in the 1980s, making it a decisive factor in the national economy.

In terms of aggregate amount, our country has become the world's packaging power, but there is a big gap between China and the developed countries in terms of variety, quality, R & D capabilities of new products and economic benefits. On the forefront of packaging technology in the high-end packaging materials, packaging machinery, food and beverage packaging, plastic film and so on are still Europe, the United States, Japan and other developed countries monopoly. The domestic packaging industry mainly exists in enterprises with small scale and low-level redundant construction and low industrial concentration. The packaging products have few varieties, low quality and low technical contents. The product structure is irrational. The main high-grade packaging equipment and raw and auxiliary materials are heavily imported. The packaging science R & D spending less, lack of innovation; packaging waste recycling rate is low.

In view of the key and difficult problems that severely restrict the development of China's packaging industry, Xu Guanhua, member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, pointed out at the inauguration ceremony of the Research Institute of Packaging Industry: "It is imperative to enhance competition in the development of packaging enterprises through technological progress, independent innovation and new product development force."