From the peak of 4.8 million/mt output and 4.61 million/mt consumption in 2009, China's newsprint industry began its downhill path thereafter. By 2019, production shrank to 1.5 million/mt and consumption to 1.9 million/mt. And the latest report from China Paper Association (CPA) predicted that industry production would reduce further to 1 million/mt, while consumption down to 1.6 million/mt in 2020.

However, the downturns in production appeared to significantly outpace declines in consumption after 2017. This was primarily the result of huge elimination of newsprint capacity and the number of consistent producers sharply fell from 12 to only 2 - Huatai Paper in the North and Guangzhou Paper in the South. However, reduction in consumption was far behind that of production, the shortfall in-between doubled from 320,000/mt in 2017 to 650,000/mt in 2020! And the difference had to be covered by imports from overseas, which surged 900% from 2016 to 2020!

As national and provincial newspapers are official media actively subscribed by all government and many other organizations, as well as the fact that millions of the senior population in the country would rather read hardcopy newspaper than electronic news and stories, declines in China's newsprint consumption will likely slow down and may even edge up in 2021 under major social events such as the celebration of the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party! Such consistent demand keeps the price of newsprint steady, which has held on at the RMB4,200-4,300/mt range since the 2nd Quarter 2020.