(www.chinapaperonline.com) Reports from China Customs showed the country imported 310,000 metric tons of newsprint in the first eight months of 2019, -11.1% from the corresponding period of 2018. Market analysts said, however, the decline reflected more of an adjustment from tremendous growth in the country’s newsprint imports in the previous years, which surged +451% from 2016 to 2017 and +44% from 2017 to 2018.
Following the global trend in newsprint demand declines, China’s consumption of newsprint also reduced year after year, causing the country’s newsprint production to tumble from its peak of 4.8 million metric tons in 2009 to 1.9 million metric tons in 2018. And the number of consistent producers fell from 12 to 3 at the same time. Such dramatic cuts in China’s domestic production more or less balanced the market and gave room for supplies from foreign countries during the interval.
Full year 2019, China’s newsprint consumption is estimated at 1.58 million metric tons, based on surveys of consumption to 108 mainstream newspapers in the country, according to China Newspaper Association (CAN). This will be -9.3% down from 2018. And supply is estimated at 1.72 million, including 150,000 metric tons of projected imports from abroad in the balance of the year.
As supply remains moderately ahead of demand in the last quarter of the year, price will continue to stay steady at around RMB5,000/tonne for deliveries from Chinese domestic newsprint mills and about RMB400/tonne less for shipment from overseas to be completive in the China market, more market analysts believe.