The first 4 months of paper profit increased 7 times! Paper industry out of the "stable and good" market

After years of rapid development and technological transformation, China's papermaking industry has become one of the world's largest papermaking countries.

After years of rapid development and technological transformation, China's papermaking industry has become one of the world's largest papermaking countries. How to build new quality productivity and promote sustainable development of the industry has become a hot topic in the industry.

According to the data of the China Paper Association, the pulp and paper products industry completed a total of 291.39 million tons of pulp, paper and paperboard and paper products in 2023, an increase of 2.63%; The operating income of the whole industry was 1.39 trillion yuan, a decrease of 2.39% year-on-year; The total profit reached 50.8 billion yuan, an increase of 4.39%. From January to April 2024, the whole industry is showing signs of stabilization.

"The new quality productivity is characterized by innovation, the key is high quality, and the essence is advanced productivity." Cao Chunyu, chairman of the Chinese Paper Society, said at the "2024 China Paper Industry Sustainable Development Forum" held on June 20 that China's paper industry is still facing the situation of large but not strong, scientific and technological achievements but not fine, and innovation behavior scattered but not gathered, and new quality productivity should be built through scientific and technological innovation, transformation and upgrading. We will strive to achieve the goal of 140 million tons of paper and cardboard in 2025 and 170 million tons in 2035.

The medium - and long-term goals of the paper industry have been clearly defined

"The paper industry is an important basic raw material industry, which not only provides functional basic raw materials for industry and agriculture, science and technology, national defense, but also provides consumer materials for people's culture and life." Paper consumption per capita is also an important indicator of a country's economic and cultural strength." Zhao Wei, chairman of the China Paper Association, said at the forum that the modern paper industry has developed into a technology-intensive industry, including a variety of technical fields, and there is still a huge space for development.

Zhao Wei introduced that at present, China's annual per capita paper consumption is more than 90 kilograms, while the average annual per capita consumption of medium developed countries is 120 to 150 kilograms, and developed countries are basically more than 200 kilograms. If we reach the level of moderately developed countries, the annual per capita consumption of 120 kilograms, the demand for paper is at least 170 million tons; If the average person is 150 kilograms, the total demand will reach 190 million tons. "Now the total consumption is only 130 million tons, and theoretically the industry still has room for development."

China Paper Association data show that in 2023, China's paper and cardboard production of 129.65 million tons, an increase of 4.35% over the previous year, consumption of 131.65 million tons, an increase of 6.14% over the previous year; Pulp production was 88.23 million tons, an increase of 2.75% over the previous year, and consumption was 11.99 million tons, an increase of 5.35% over the previous year; The output of paper products was 73.51 million tons, down 0.38% from the previous year, and the consumption was 68.23 million tons, down 1.07% from the previous year.

"From January to April this year, the production of the paper industry is increasing, sales are generally increasing, and the profit of paper has walked out of the depressed state of the same period last year, and the profit has increased by seven times." Zhao Wei revealed that in the first four months of this year, the industry-wide pulp production of 6.06 million tons, paper production of 49.72 million tons, paper products production of 21.37 million tons, the former two have increased by more than 14%, and the revenue and profit data of the latter two are also year-on-year growth.

According to the "14th Five-Year Plan" and medium - and long-term high-quality development program of the paper industry, in 2025, the total output of paper and paperboard in the country will reach 140 million tons (annual per capita consumption of 100 kilograms), the output of raw pulp is 30 million tons, and the output of paper products is 90 million tons; In 2035, the total output of paper and paperboard will reach 170 million tons (annual per capita consumption of more than 120 kilograms), the proportion of raw pulp will exceed 30%, and the output of paper products will reach 120 million tons.

Zhao Wei said that the paper industry is sustainable development, because of its green attributes and the characteristics of circular economy, China's current paper raw materials are nearly 60% of the use of recycled paper, a lot of wood is the leftovers of wood processing plants, secondary materials. In addition, the paper industry is currently very perfect in the treatment of solid gas liquid waste, which is already a modern industry.

Nearly 80% of the raw wood pulp depends on imports

The Economic Herald reporter learned that Shandong plays an important role in China's paper industry.

Professor Chen Jiachuan, former president of Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences) and director of the State Key Laboratory of Bio-based Materials and Green Papermaking, told the Economic Herald reporter that Shandong is the first papermaking province and also a large pulping province. In 2023, five leading enterprises such as Sun Paper, Chenming Paper and Shandong Bo Hui have a total paper production of 23.6 million tons, accounting for 18.2% of the country; The total output of the top five pulp enterprises in Shandong is 11.25 million tons, which is exactly half of the national pulp production.

But our paper industry is also facing serious shortage of resources. Chen Jiachuan said that papermaking is not possible to use all waste pulp, waste pulp accounts for about 60%, to supplement 40% of the original pulp. Last year, there were 10.4 million tons of domestic wood chip pulping, 12 million tons of imported wood chip pulping, 26.84 million tons of imported wood pulp, 38.84 million tons of imported pulp and imported wood chip pulp, accounting for 78.8% of the entire original wood pulp 49.31 million tons, and the degree of external dependence is quite high.

Cao Chunyu said that China's paper industry is also facing a stage or partial overcapacity, but also facing the weak growth of traditional light industrial products export situation, can no longer expect as in the past, through the growth of total exports to stimulate the growth of paper and cardboard consumption.

In terms of scientific and technological innovation, Cao Chunyu introduced that since 2009, China's paper industry has ranked first in the world in terms of production and sales, accounting for more than a quarter of the global total output, but the advantages of fiber raw materials, advanced equipment and high-performance materials are not obvious; Scientific and technological achievements are more than fine, according to the statistical analysis of the industry science and technology industry, only 10% to 30% of China's cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements are used for actual production, and only 20% of the real industry is formed.

"Really can feed or promote industrial technological progress, really can promote the economic benefits of enterprises, enterprise technology improvement is not many." Cao Chunyu said that the scientific and technological innovation behavior of the paper industry is scattered but not clustered, the main body of the enterprise is not obvious, the leading characteristics of nearly 100 colleges and universities, research institutes, design institutes, and technology centers recognized by the state, the mode of their own governance is more, and the integration, collaboration, and innovation are weak.

Green intelligence integration to build new quality productivity

In view of the opportunities and challenges facing the paper industry, industry experts and corporate executives have also given coping strategies.

Chen Jiachuan believes that in terms of raw materials, the use of agricultural residues is an important direction, Shandong in the century Sunshine project to do 200,000 tons of wheat straw bio-mechanical pulp production line, has been completed and put into operation. However, the basic research of straw pulping is relatively weak, no major breakthroughs have been made, and the original and subversive technologies are relatively lacking. In addition, the uneven quality of straw pulping, instability and poor water filtration limit the scope of use of straw pulping.

The efficient utilization of fiber resources based on papermaking platform is also worthy of attention. Chen Jiachuan said that the construction of an integrated platform for agricultural and forestry pulp and paper refining can greatly improve the utilization rate. For example, in agricultural and forestry leftovers, cellulose can be used as nanocellulose in addition to paper making, and can be used as a derivative of dissolved pulp cellulose; The lignin is burned off as heat energy recovery, and can also be made into other products, adhesives, etc., are done very well.

Cao Chunyu suggested that the whole industry gather resources and do more in the collaborative innovation of bamboo pulping and papermaking technology and equipment, such as the tissue culture of special bamboo, the systematic development of planting technology, the special equipment of collection, storage and transportation and the change of business model. In terms of scientific and technological innovation, enterprises should be the leading and leading force, actively set questions, dare to try, and base scientific and technological achievements and achievements on application results.

Professor Liu Huanbin, former president of South China University of Technology, said at the forum that intelligent manufacturing is an important content of new quality productivity, and is a new production mode generated after the deep integration of a new generation of information technology with the paper industry and traditional industry. Paper industry to achieve sustainable development, green and intelligent indispensable. It is necessary to gather various forces, including enterprises, governments, and society, to accelerate the transformation to intelligence.

"Among them, how can the industrial intelligent technology of the paper industry be developed? How to develop the application after having the technology? In the application to improve, in the application to iterate, entrepreneurs should play a leading role." Liu Huanbin said.

Zhai Jingli, vice president of APP (China) of Sinar Mas Group, said at the forum that enterprises are not only the main body of the market economy, but also the main body of scientific and technological innovation. Enterprises should develop through scientific and technological innovation, and strive to cultivate new quality productivity by promoting the deep integration of high and new technologies with real industries, strengthening the transformation of scientific research and innovation results, and deepening the coordinated development and innovation of the whole link, so as to achieve sustainable and high-quality development of enterprises and industries.

It is reported that as a leading enterprise in the paper industry, Sinar Mas Group (China) makes the factory intelligent, green and high-end by promoting the deep integration of high-tech and real industries. For example, Rudong factory relies on 5G, cloud computing and "Industry 4.0+ artificial intelligence" and other advanced technology concepts, uses the world's advanced production data automation system and AGV, RGV, RFID and other production automation equipment, organically combines papermaking, processing and logistics, so as to achieve information data, management modularization, and production automation. Finally, the digital coverage of the whole process from the supplier to the pulp mill, paper mill and then to the customer is achieved, and the overall energy saving of the workshop is reduced by 25%.