(www.chinapaperonline.com) China’s paper industry continued its headwind battle amid adverse economic environment. In the first 6 months of 2019, industry earnings tumbled -25.4% from the same period of 2018 to RMB28.15 billion, following a -2.3% dip in business revenue to RMB652.83 billion, China’s National Statistics Bureau (CNSB) reported on August 5th.
As a result of sleepy demand, market for prime corrugating medium weakened for example. In much of July, price stayed low at RMB3,286.50 per metric ton, -1.6% from a year ago. In fact, medium producers in the country began to report consistent declines in sales price from the 1st Quarter. It is now known to all that many mid-to-small mills are running at loss and may hardly be able to return to positive performance in the rest of 2019.
Data released by CNSB also showed the country’s paper and board production in June rose to 10.42 million metric tons, +6.4% from 12 months ago. And aggregate output from January to June of 2019 reached 59.02 million metric tons, +1.3% from that of 2018. In June, production of paper-grade pulp (virgin and recycled) grew +8.7% from a year ago to 1.14 million metric tons and production in the first half of 2019 totaled 6.58 million metric tons, +7.8% from that of 2018.
Reports from China Packaging Association confirmed, however, that business revenue of the country’s paper-based packages manufacturing industry in the first six months of 2019 dipped -0.49% from the same period of 2018 to RMB142.86 billion (US$20.56 billion) and combined earnings of mainstream producers/converters (with annual revenue over RMB10 million) dropped -3.93% to RMB6.37 billion (US$916.55 million). Overall, the industry loss extended to -18.38% from that of 2018 to RMB728 million (US$104.75 million).
CNSB also said that China’s paper and board imports rose +13.3% to 540,000 metric tons in April, making the combined imports in the first 4 months of 2019 to 1.70 million metric tons, +0.5% from that of 2018.