Shares of Chinese polyethylene manufacturer, Guanwei Recycling Corp. (Nasdaq: GPRC) were up more than 20 percent from Tuesday’s closing price in morning trading on Monday. Trading volume was more than 10 times the company’s three-month average.

“China, right now is the biggest plastic importer in the world,” said Guanwei Recycling’s VP of marketing Liya Wu, in an interview with TheStreet.com. “Our annual import of plastic waste is about…5 million tons to 7 million tons. So it’s really the biggest market. China is not only the biggest market not only in the volume of the plastic manufacturer, but also as a plastic products exporter, and we are the biggest recycler of plastics.”
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Guanwei Recycling generates most of its business from Europe. Most recently, the company announced a sales contract with Sunshine Handels & Consulting GmbH, a leading German recycling company, for the purchase of 25,000 tons of LDPE waste through June 2011, which will be converted into recycled LDPE at Guanwei’s clean tech facilities in Fuqing City. Europe, has a “higher waste classification system” than the U.S., according to Wu.

Guanwei is currently focused on increasing its environmental protection levels, and increasing its manufacturing capacity, according to Wu.

For the three months ended March 31, 2010, net revenue was $9,494,226, representing a 58.01% decrease from net revenue of $22,611,689 for the three months ended March 31, 2009. This sharp decrease was primarily caused by the fact that, unlike the first quarter of 2009, Guanwei did not sell any raw materials or purchased recycled LDPE during the first quarter of 2010.

Shares are currently trading about about 21 percent lower than the company’s 52-week high of $5.70.