(www.chinapaperonline.com) Chinese authorities released the 15th lot of recyclable scrap import quota on December 3rd. Widely believed as the final lot for the year, the quota only included 31,310 metric tons of RCP, which largely went to Nine Dragons. If the 15th lot really was the final, the total amount of RCP import quota for year 2019 was only 10.75 million metric tons. Shrinking nearly 41% from that of 2018, the annual allocation began to fall from 2017 when the Chinese government became more serious in preventing carry-on contaminants in recyclable scrap shipment from getting into the country. The enhanced administrative scrutiny since then not only brought the total volume of RCP import quota down to the least, but also resulted in dramatic declines in actual RCP shipment from the outside world into China in 2019, even including roll-overs from 2018. Gone were the good old days in 2012 when China’s RCP imports surged to 30 million metric tons! Along with the declines in import volume, the number of quota recipients also reduced to about 80 in the entire paper industry of China by now.

As usual, the Chinese authorities may complete application review and release new quota for year 2020 by/before the 4th week of December 2019 and volume for the 1st Quarter quota will by and large overwhelm those latter quarters of the year. This may provide a clue to market analysts on the approximate volume for year 2020. Anyhow, it is generally expected that volume for 2020 will be further reduced and will cater favorably to the top-3 paper and board producers of the country – Nine Dragons, Lee&man and Shanying Paper.