The Malaysian Ministry of Environmental Protection sent a letter to Jingxing Paper (Malaysia) – a full-owned subsidiary of Jingxing Paper Group - on October 2nd, confirming the Ministry’s approval of the environmental impact assessment report (EIA Report) submitted by the company.
Valid for two years from the date of the approval, the Malaysian authorities have turned on the green light to the company to go ahead to construct its 800,000/mtpy recycled pulp mill and 600,000/mtpy packaging paperboard mill. By now, Jingxing Paper has completed all administrative review and approval procedures in China and Malaysia and will be able to begin as planned to build its pulp mill first and the paperboard mill thereafter.
The Jingxing Paper Group was incorporated in 1984 and went public in 2006. For decades, the company has been engaging in the production and conversion of brown linerboard, white-top linerboard, corrugating medium, textile cone board and tissue paper. The five state-of-the-art paperboard machines and 3 tissue paper machines have grown the company’s paper and board production capacity over 1.5 million/mtpy in China. After the completion of the Malaysian project, total paper and board production capacity of the Jingxing Paper Group will exceed 2.1 million/mtpy.
Attracted by incentives to foreign investment offered by Malaysian government and to tap the country’s rich resources, including low-cost labor, natural harbor, forests and water, as well as the promising prospects of marketing finished products to China and other Asian countries, Jingxing Paper began its expedition in 2018. And such efforts were quickly joined by a number of other Chinese paper companies, including the top-3 players: Nine Dragons, Lee & Man and Shanying Paper. According to information available, the majority of the announced investment projects from Chinese paper and board companies is focused on industrial paperboard and tissue paper and the combined capacity is well over 7 million/mtpy! Further, almost all projects will initially consume recovered paper either from overseas or generated locally and may extend to virgin pulp from local production or neighboring countries such as Indonesia.
While hailing for exploration of Chinese paper companies for their business expansion to the global arena to tap more resources and opportunities, a growing number of analysts have cautioned the social and economic impacts to Malaysia at the same time. Having about 330 thousand km2 of land and 30 million people, Malaysia may have a limit in digesting foreign investment at a time. The flock-in of millions of tons of pulp and paper capacity in a short period of time may bring about potential issues involving air, water, soil and plantation, etc.
