Even Chinese paper is going to get stuck in the ne

China's even used paper will also be blocked

release date: Source: Chinese merchants' strategy · Chinese merchants Hall of fame, paper citation future Views: 1510 copyright and disclaimer

core tip: China invented paper, but China's paper industry is very underdeveloped! A leaf falls and knows the autumn of the world. Under the price adjustment of household paper, the safety problems of paper in China caused by the rise in the price of pulp raw materials are known to the world every leaf. With the price adjustment of household paper, the safety problems of paper in China caused by the rise in the price of pulp raw materials have gradually surfaced

one, up! Up! Up

"last time I bought it, it was 29.9 yuan, and I can't afford to buy it again. I can only save money in the future!" Brother Miao, the blogger of golden V, posted such a microblog and attached a photo of 10 rolls of Vida toilet paper in the supermarket for 42.99 yuan

there are not a few roast like this. Search the keyword "paper price rise" on social media. Some friends say that the price of A4 paper in print stores has risen now; Some friends roast that the envelope of express delivery has also become thinner and worse; Some friends joked that the uncle who collects paper now may earn more than himself

since April 1, the four major household paper enterprises in China - jinhongye, HengAn, Weida and Zhongshun (jierou) have raised their product prices, and some household paper products have increased by 10% - 20%

in addition to household paper, other packaging paper, cultural paper and special paper have already been subject to price adjustment. In March, the ex factory price of white cardboard exceeded the 10000 yuan mark for the first time, up 18% from February

the recovery of economic fundamentals has provided the basis for the rise in the price of paper products, but the biggest driving force is still driven by the rise in upstream supply costs. Since the third quarter of 2020, the price of wood pulp, the most common raw material for paper products, has continued to rise, nearly doubling

from the rise in the price of raw materials last year to the price of downstream consumers, it has been an inevitable event

papermaking is an industry with generally stable demand. The cost of raw materials largely determines the profit margin of enterprises in the middle and lower reaches of the industrial chain. Most Chinese paper enterprises are located in the middle reaches of raw material processing, and the import of raw material wood pulp accounts for more than two-thirds, which is quite passive

in this round of price rise, a realistic and embarrassing problem has been exposed: not only the high-tech industry, but also the paper industry will be stuck. It is estimated that China's dependence on imports of pulp products soared from 12.93% in 2008 to 23.39% in 2018. Except for 2009, China's dependence on imports of pulp products maintained an increasing trend

autumn is known when a leaf falls. With the price adjustment of household paper, the safety problems of paper in China caused by the rise in the price of pulp raw materials have gradually surfaced

second, is it doomed to be controlled by others

pulp, as the main raw material of the paper industry, can be divided into three categories: waste pulp, wood pulp and non wood pulp, of which waste pulp and wood pulp are the main raw materials. Wood pulp is mainly used for household paper and cultural paper; Waste pulp is mostly used for packaging paper; Non wood pulp is mostly used for household paper

▲ picture source: white paper on paper industry chain

let's talk about wood pulp first

wood pulp can be divided into coniferous pulp and broad-leaved pulp according to the different tree species of raw materials. The sources of coniferous pulp are mainly temperate and cold temperate countries and regions with higher latitudes. The world's major exporters of coniferous pulp include Canada, Finland, the United States, etc

the sources of broad-leaved pulp are mainly tropical and subtropical countries and regions with low latitude. The world's major exporters of broad-leaved pulp include Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, etc

generally, coniferous pulp has stronger toughness and extensibility than broad-leaved pulp, so a certain proportion of coniferous pulp is usually added in the use of wood pulp to enhance the toughness of paper

in 2020, China imported 30.64 million tons of wood pulp, an increase of 12.7% year-on-year; The domestic output of wood pulp is 11.41 million tons, and imported wood pulp accounts for 72.8% of the total consumption of wood pulp

behind the huge import volume is the basic reality of the lack of forest resources in China. The latest data show that China's forest coverage is only 22.96%, lower than the world average of 31%. The forest area also lags far behind the above-mentioned major exporters of wood pulp, so that wood pulp, the main raw material of the paper industry, needs to rely on foreign imports for a long time

let's take another look at waste pulp

waste pulp is mainly used for packaging paper as papermaking raw material. The sources of waste pulp can be divided into domestic waste paper and imported waste paper. Among the imported waste paper, the quality and pulp yield of paper products in developed countries are higher, so the foreign waste is mainly from developed countries in Europe, the United States and Japan

in recent years, under the guidance of relevant policies, the import of waste paper has decreased year by year. According to the information of China's solid waste chemicals management, China imported 8.232 million tons of waste paper in 2020. Although this amount accounts for less than 20% of China's waste paper output, the improvement of China's waste paper recovery rate is relatively slow, and it is difficult to fill this supply gap in the short term

the shortage of waste paper raw materials has indirectly affected enterprises in the whole paper industry chain, reducing their bargaining power over upstream enterprises, and is a huge challenge for enterprises that specialize in providing waste paper raw material processing capacity. They either compete with similar paper enterprises for domestic waste paper raw materials at high prices, adjust their production lines to meet the changing needs of raw material supply, or withdraw from the market directly

and non wood pulp

in addition to wood pulp and waste pulp, non wood pulp is made of other non wood plant fibers due to mechanical wear. There are three main types of non wood pulp: cereal fiber raw pulp (such as straw, bamboo, bagasse, etc.), bast fiber raw pulp (such as hemp, kenaf, flax, etc.) and seed wool fiber raw pulp (such as cotton fiber, etc.)

China is the country with the largest non wood pulp production in the world, and has more non wood pulp raw material resources. However, due to the poor fiber quality of non wood pulp, it needs to be mixed with wood pulp to obtain higher quality paper products, and the process of extracting fiber from raw materials requires higher process level and chemical agent cost, so the cost performance ratio is low. In recent years, under the impact of foreign wood pulp and waste pulp, the proportion of non wood pulp raw materials has been low

the contradiction between supply and demand of raw materials in China's paper industry comes from the basic reality of lack of resources, and is also affected by the changes in industrial supply caused by the improvement of its own environmental protection requirements

in addition, with the easing of the epidemic and the expected rise of economic recovery, the world shipping costs are also gradually rising. On March 23 this year, the incident of the cargo ship "Chang Ci" blocking the Suez canal also disturbed the price of pulp, which has long been dependent on imports

China imports wood pulp from more than 30 countries and regions around the world, more than 90% of which come from these eight countries: Canada, Brazil, Indonesia, the United States, Chile, Finland, Uruguay, Russia

▲ picture source: unsplash

the rapid development of China over the years has attracted the envy of some countries. The western countries led by the United States continue to suppress China with economic policies. It is well known that they have made policies that restrict China's import of high-tech products such as chips and lithography machines, but what many people don't know is that in non high-tech fields that also rely on imports, they will still be threatened by "neck binding"

as a wood pulp raw material with high fiber quality, coniferous pulp is mainly supplied to Canada, the United States and Finland, and it is also a country with more trade frictions with China, which poses a security threat to its supply

Storaenso, Finland's largest pulp and paper manufacturer, decided to stop supplying pulp raw materials to Xinjiang after the South China Morning Post mentioned that most of the chemical wood pulp raw materials used in Xinjiang came from Finland, according to Finland's YLE radio station

although Stora Enso did not respond positively to whether this decision was related to BCI's previous boycott of cotton in Xinjiang, the South China Morning Post reported that the Xinjiang factory cooperating with Stora Enso was close to the "concentration camp of forced labor" rumored by foreign media. The Finnish prime minister once said on twitter, "the international community cannot turn a blind eye to China's policies of trampling human rights and oppressing ethnic minorities."

in 2020, the export of Canadian coniferous pulp to China in a single month decreased by 32% year-on-year. According to the data of this month, the proportion of coniferous pulp in Canada continues to decline

however, there is another country that can provide a large amount of coniferous pulp and maintains good and stable diplomatic relations with China, that is Russia

in 2020, Russia exported more than 1.14 million tons of Chinese needle pulp, with a year-on-year increase of more than 250000 tons. In the whole year, only 448000 tons of Russian pulp were imported from Manchuria by the China Europe train. In addition, Russia's Ilim group and Xiamen Jianfa paper signed a four-year agreement on the supply of base paper and pulp, which can obtain the raw material supply of 300000 tons of base paper and 180000 tons of pulp every year

China generally has good diplomatic relations with countries that supply broad-leaved pulp, but these countries generally have a low level of economic development, and the level of prevention and control in this epidemic is not high, which has affected some pulp production capacity. For example, Arauco, a Chilean pulp giant, announced in March that it had temporarily stopped production because some employees were infected with novel coronavirus, and the projects under construction had also been suspended

under the epidemic, the construction investment of new production capacity in many countries was forced to be shelved, which may lead to a decline in production capacity supply in the next year

China Harbour Indonesia is the contractor of the supporting wharf of Oki pulp mill. It is also one of the Chinese funded enterprises that help the bottom people fight the "epidemic" after the outbreak of COVID-19 in Indonesia. In the early stage of the epidemic, China Harbour distributed personal epidemic prevention materials to the surrounding people for many times, which alleviated the impact of the epidemic to a certain extent and made the project complete smoothly during the epidemic

while providing epidemic prevention assistance to overseas partners, Chinese enterprises have also contributed to the stable supply of raw materials for China, the world factory

IV. how to break the situation

under the restrictions of many objective factors, how to improve the safety of paper use in China? The market is always the smartest. Observing some enterprises in the industry, or comparing with foreign high-temperature endurance testing machines for thermal insulation profiles, the process flow is: operating platform on profiles → pasting protective film → opening teeth → threading → rolling → filling polyurethane foam in the thermal insulation cavity → packaging exhibition can actively remove pollutants in vehicles. We may find some answers

with the complete implementation of China's waste prohibition order, the quota of foreign waste pulp of paper enterprises is cleared, which increases the gap of papermaking raw materials, the price of domestic waste paper is also rising, and the contradiction between supply and demand is deepening. However, there is still a lot of room for domestic waste paper production to grow

▲ image source: unsplash

according to the statistics of statista, a foreign data platform, the paper recovery rate in Japan was as high as 85% in 2020, and the average recovery rate in recent ten years was more than 80%. According to the 2019 monitoring report published by the European waste paper recycling Commission (EPRC), the overall paper recycling rate in Europe has reached 72%. In contrast, the recycling rate of waste paper in China in 2019 was only 49%

some people call waste paper "waste paper in the city"