Consumption of chemicals by world region 2022
Global consumption of chemicals
Chemical consumption worldwide in 2022 accounted for more than 5.77 trillion euros. Products worth 3.46 trillion euros of that amount were consumed in Asia, followed by Europe and North America (NAFTA), at 1.01 trillion euros and 706.92 billion euros, respectively. Overall, regional chemical consumption is expected to grow most rapidly in Asia in the coming years.
Asia plays a sizable role in the global chemicals market, but China in particular is largely responsible for the recent increases in Asia’s growing exports and consumption of chemicals. In 2022, Chinese chemical consumption accounted for approximately 2.4 trillion euros. This value was over four times as much as the consumption of chemicals in the United States, while Japan and Germany came in a distant third and fourth, respectively. Germany, the United States, and China held the leading positions as the countries with the largest share of global chemical exports that year.
The chemical industry worldwide has been on a growth track over the last decade, reachng some 4.7 trillion U.S. dollars in 2021. The largest chemical companies in 2022 were mostly based in Germany, Japan, and the United States. As of 2022, Linde and Air Liquide were the top chemical companies worldwide based on market capitalization, with roughly 150 billion U.S. dollars and 79 billion U.S. dollars, respectively.