(www.chinapaperonline.com) At a press briefing on January 17th, spokesman Liu Youbin of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment reaffirmed the government plan to end recovered paper imports from overseas by end-2020.

Liu recognized the progress from the relentless efforts taken by related government agencies on recyclable scrap import supervision and controls in 2019, partly through a 40.4% cut of the country’s recyclable solid scraps import quota during the year. Total imports of recyclable solid scraps declined to 13.48 million metric tons, including less than 10.75 million metric tons of recovered paper, which was down -41% from the previous year, and at the elimination of 56 items of solid scraps from the import list at the same time. This helped clear the way to terminate all recyclable scraps imports by end-2020, according to market observers.