The year of 2017 has witnessed remarkable growth of China paper industry, as can be seen from the data released by National Bureau of Statistics of China. In 2017, China paper and board output increased smoothly to reach 125.42 million tons, with the cumulative increase rate of 3.1%. The cumulative export delivery value of the national paper industry was 31.47 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.6%; the sales-to-output ratio was 97.8%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.6%. For paper and paper products segment, main business income and total profits turned out to be 1,520.3 billion and 102.86 billion yuan, increased by 13.6% and 36.2% year-on-year respectively. (Table 1)
For regional output in different provinces, in 2017, the output of Guangdong’s machine-made paper and board was 21,777.4 thousand tons, ranking the first in China. Shandong province (21,775.0 thousand tons) ranked the second only with a slight gap of 2.4 thousand tons. The combined output of paper and board in the two provinces accounted for about a third of the country’s total output. In addition, Zhejiang province ranked the third in the country with the output of 19,112.1 thousand tons, and Jiangsu province ranked the forth with the output of 12,776.8 thousand tons. Paper and board output in Fujian and Henan was 7,799.0 and 6,975.4 thousand tons respectively. The output of other provinces is below 5,000 thousand tons. (Table 2)
Table 1 Major economic indicators of China’s paper and paper products industry in 2017
| Indicators | Figure | Year-on-year
increase/% |
| Machine-made paper and paperboard output
/thousand tons |
125,420 |
3.1 |
| Number of related enterprises |
6,681 |
-0.3 |
| Investment in fixed assets
/billion yuan |
309.10 |
1.2 |
| Turnover/billion yuan |
1,541.31 |
13.7 |
| Main business income
/billion yuan |
1,520.30 |
13.6 |
| Total profits/billion yuan |
102.86 |
36.2 |
| Number of unprofitable enterprises |
677 |
-8.9 |
| Total loss of unprofitable enterprises/billion yuan |
4.1 |
-46.8 |
| Total assets/billion yuan |
1457.58 |
5.1 |
| Total current assets/billion yuan |
683.73 |
8.3 |
| Accounts receivable/billion yuan |
164.96 |
8 |
| Inventory value/billion yuan |
130.73 |
13.7 |
| Inventory value of finished products/billion yuan |
50.18 |
19.6 |
| Total debts/billion yuan |
794.3 |
3.4 |
| Operation costs/billion yuan |
1318.61 |
12.7 |
| Operation costs of main business/billion yuan |
1301.95 |
12.5 |
| Sales expenses/billion yuan |
43.76 |
10.2 |
| Management costs /billion yuan |
53.1 |
8.7 |
| Financial expenses/billion yuan |
22.23 |
-1.9 |
| Interest expenses/billion yuan |
20.42 |
2.7 |
Table 2 Areas with paper& board output above one million tons in 2017
| Rank | Administrative areas | Output
/thousand tons |
| 1 | Guangdong province |
21,777.4 |
| 2 | Shandong province |
21,775.0 |
| 3 | Zhejiang province |
19,112.1 |
| 4 | Jiangsu province |
12,776.8 |
| 5 | Fujian provicne |
7,799.0 |
| 6 | Henan province |
6,975.4 |
| 7 | Hunan province |
4,022.8 |
| 8 | Hebei province |
3,721.1 |
| 9 | Anhui province |
3,503.8 |
| 10 | Chongqing Municipality |
3,289.9 |
| 11 | Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region |
3,008.9 |
| 12 | Tianjin Municipality |
2,864.3 |
| 13 | Hubei province |
2,767.2 |
| 14 | Sichuan province |
2,370.7 |
| 15 | Jiangxi province |
2,110.4 |
| 16 | Hainan province |
1,751.6 |
| 17 | Liaoning province |
1,069.0 |
| Total |
120,695.4 |
Source：National Bureau of Statistics of China
