China's market is amazed by the busy launch of new tissue machines since the turn of the year. Installed in various parts of China of no less than 10 machines, individual capacity of each machine ranges from 20,000/mtpy to 60,000/mtpy. Market observers say the new start-ups have added at least 250,000/mtpy production capacity to the country's tissue industry. Since 2000, China's tissue production and consumption have maintained their positive growth. While production hit 10.8 million/mt in 2020, excess volume from domestic production over consumption also expanded to 870,000/mt.

However, Chinese tissue producers and investors seem to have little concern on the excess as there is already an established market in Southeast Asia that was able to entertain a +50% growth of China's tissue paper exports from 2010 to 2020 according to official data. And such comfort was significantly boosted by the surge of demand as the pandemic rages at home and abroad, which as a result included tissue paper into the personal protection equipment and drove all Chinese tissue mills in full capacity or even over-capacity runs in 2020. Orders from foreign countries alone were overwhelming. On the production side, unlike many other grades of paper and board that investors have to face great challenges in securing fiber supply, tissue paper production, including high-end facial tissue, can very well be fed by fiber from bamboo – a natural plant that is vastly grown and can be harvested and pulped at relatively low cost in many parts of China!

More market analysts now expect that capacity expansion in the tissue paper industry will continue and production in 2021 may exceed 11.5 million/mt.