China’s containerboard market is on the rising path. The RMB100/mt price increase initiated by Nine Dragons (Chongqing) last week was quickly echoed by a number of containerboard producers in the country. And the 3-day maintenance downtime announced by Shanying Paper (Zhejiang) affecting 3 machines in mid-October fueled up the rush.

By tradition, September is the high converting season under rising demand for linerboard and medium for National Day and Moon Festival gift packaging in the domestic market and export packaging for holidays in foreign markets from the 4th Quarter. In view of the economic uncertainties, especially export packaging demand, more market analysts remain cautious and are seeing moderate upward adjustment in price for both linerboard and medium from September to December. Any major price increases attempted by the board producers may encounter greater resistance from the converters along the coast whose board stocks are generally sufficient and can only add no more than RMB10 cents/m2 for their corrugated boards.

Meanwhile, China’s recovered paper market remains relatively quiet, rippling between RMB30 and 50/mt in price changes across the country, though more ups in Eastern and Southern China than downs in upper China. The 12th lot of recovered paper import quota recently released by the Chinese authorities, though the 4th largest among the lots of quota issued for the year, had barely any impacts on the Chinese market. This led more market analysts to believe the China market for recovered paper will remain steady for the rest of 2020.