Latest report from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (CNBS) showed the country’s paper industry produced 67.56 million metric tons of unconverted machine-made paper and paperboard in the first six months of 2023, barely increasing 0.7% from the corresponding period of 2022, although output in June gaining 5.8% from May to 12.38 million metric tons. Again, newsprint was the worst performer by grades, as production in the six-month period tumbled 10.4% from that of 2022 to 407,000 metric tons and output in June alone shrank 8.6% from 12-months ago to 74,000 metric tons.

In the first half of 2023, combined sales revenue of designated-sized paper and paper converting companies (with individual core business income exceeding RMB20 million annually) fell 5.5% to RMB652.39 billion and net earnings down 44.6% to RMB12.04 billion from that of 2022, in spite of the efforts to reduce business cost by 4.1% to RMB584.58 billion.

Contrary to the brilliant show of 2022, exports of the industry have lost momentum. From January to June, exports of paper, paperboard and converted products totaled RMB33.98 billion, down 0.2% from the same period of 2022. Most significant was in June when shipment to overseas decreased 10.3% from a year ago to RMB6.18 billion (at the current value of RMB).