The chemical industry is a comprehensive industry that determines the level of scientific and technological progress along with mechanical engineering, and also supplies materials and technologies for all sectors of the national economy.
The chemical industry of the world is one of the main branches of heavy industry, and represents the material, scientific and technical basis for the chemicalization of all sectors of the national economy. This branch of the economy plays a key role in strengthening defense capabilities, building up productive forces, and supporting the vital needs of any society. The chemical industry of the world is a complex of industries, the basic technologies in which are chemical methods of processing materials or raw materials. Thanks to the development of the chemical industry, complex production of valuable industrial products appears and develops; replacement of expensive raw materials with cheaper and affordable; industrial waste is disposed of; there is an integrated use of raw materials. The chemical industry of the world forms a complex and multifunctional system of relations with other sectors of the national economy, for example, gas and oil refining industry, coal mining, metallurgical industry, as well as forestry and light industry. Combinations of various industries with the chemical make it possible to create entire industrial complexes.
Statistics show that the chemical industry in the world had the highest development rates until the mid-70s. The energy crisis of this period somewhat slowed down the pace of development of this industry, since it took some time to restore the structural and technological restructuring in the chemical industry. Further development of the chemical industry has shown stable results, and currently this industry is ahead of electronics only in terms of the cost of its products. In the share of industrial production in developed countries, the chemical industry is second only to mechanical engineering.
The petrochemical industry of Russia is a single complex of the national economy engaged in the extraction and refining of oil and its derivatives. According to statistics, in the last decade of the 20th century, petrochemical products accounted for more than a third of all products of the chemical industry, and more than half of the production of organic components on a global scale. The same proportions remained in the petrochemical industry of Russia.
The chemical industry is complex in structure and has more than 200 sub-sectors, while the assortment of goods manufactured by the chemical industry reaches 1 million. The German chemical industry, like the world chemical industry, groups the sub-sectors into the mining and chemical industry, the main chemical and polymer materials industry.
The mining and chemical industry is associated with the extraction, processing and enrichment of phosphorites, potassium salts, and sulfur. The main chemical industry is represented by the production of mineral fertilizers, salts, alkalis, acids. And the polymer industry is based on organic synthesis and includes the production of synthetic plastics and resins, chemical fibers and rubber, dyes, etc. The same petrochemical industry provides the consumer needs of society and is used for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, photochemistry, detergents, cosmetics and perfumes.