In May 2022, susano paper and pulp company, the world’s largest pulp producer, issued a warning that the global pulp inventory has been declining significantly and the supply is facing a shortage.

In recent years, affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, many problems have emerged in the global logistics industry, including shortage of human resources, shortage of containers, rising transportation prices, frequent transportation congestion, and increased transportation time. Many problems can not be effectively solved, which ultimately has a great impact on the import and export of raw materials for daily necessities, including pulp. The raw materials for pulp production in Europe mainly depend on the supply of Eastern Europe. Affected by the logistics industry and the continuous conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the supply of pulp raw materials is tight, resulting in a decline in pulp production and an imbalance between supply and demand in the global pulp market.

At present, China’s COVID-19 prevention and control measures are in place. Compared with other countries, the epidemic situation is relatively stable, and the domestic pulp output is stable. The upstream of the pulp industry chain is a raw material supplier. China’s pulp manufacturing is dominated by waste pulp, and the supply of waste paper, the main raw material, is sufficient. According to the data of the China Paper Association, the total domestic waste paper recovery in 2021 was 64.91 million tons, an increase of 18.2% year-on-year. In the past 10 years, China’s waste paper recovery was more than 40 million tons, and the supply of waste paper raw materials was relatively stable; The midstream is a pulp manufacturer, and the main companies are Shanying paper, Chenming paper, Guanhao high tech, Yibin Paper, etc; The downstream is pulp application enterprises, mainly in the paper industry, including double offset paper, coated paper, toilet paper and white cardboard.

Affected by the shortage of global pulp supply, the output of foreign paper products industry has continued to decline. Under this background, the export volume of China’s paper products has soared. According to the latest data of the National Bureau of statistics, in March 2022, the export delivery value of China’s paper and paper products industry reached 5.54 billion yuan, an increase of 18.7% year-on-year. According to the “2022-2027 in-depth market research and investment strategy recommendations report on the pulp (primary pulp and waste pulp) industry” released by xinsijie Industrial Research Center, China’s paper and paper products export business has shown a rapid growth trend since the middle of 2021. Pulp is an important raw material for the production of paper making and paper products industry. The continuous increase of the latter’s export volume will certainly drive the continuous growth of the former’s demand, and thus promote the rapid development of its industry.

Some analysts said that the lack of global pulp supply has promoted the continuous growth of China’s paper and paper products export market and further promoted the development of China’s pulp industry. However, in recent years, the pulp price fluctuates frequently and it is difficult to judge the trend. In order to ensure the sustainable development of China’s pulp industry, the pulp industry should develop in the direction of clustering in the future to reduce the development risk. At the same time, China’s pulp enterprises should actively expand their business to the upstream of the industrial chain, build an integrated enterprise integrating waste paper recycling stations, paper mills, product packaging and transfer stations, and form a closed-loop industrial chain, so as to reduce production costs and improve production efficiency.