The growth of paper industry in the chinese market

According to a report by Moody’s, world production of paper and paperboard is s forecasted to reach 490 million tons by year 2020. The pulp and paper industry is one of the largest industries in the world. It is dominated by North American, Northern European and East Asian companies. Latin America and Australasia also have significant pulp and paper industries. Over the next few years, it is expected that both India and China will become key players in the industry.

Moreover, the paper industry will focus on serving more niche markets as a result of changing demand and production methods. Cardboard and packaging paper products will have continued global demand.

The country leader in the pulp and paper market is China

China is the country leader in the pulp and paper market in the Asia Pacific region. In recent years, the Chinese market has begun to address the environmental hazards posed by the obsolete capacity. The imposition of environmental protection taxes directly replaced sewage charges and are incorporated into local government taxation systems. This means non-compliance companies will face more stringent supervision. However, the large-scale paper manufacturers with the advantages in terms of pollutant emission per tonne will be more profitable through tax reduction.

With increasing Internet usage and the rise of social media, the demand for print paper will continue to decline but the new increasing demand from the ecommerce sector and personalized packaging will create a new upcoming market.

Pulp production and environment

The pulp and paper industry is faced with mounting environmental, political, and economic pressures to reduce the volume and toxicity of its industrial wastewater. During the last few years, the concept of system closure has been gaining popularity in the forest products industry for the following reasons:

• The concept offers more flexibility in the siting of new mills, including consideration of mill locations with limited fresh-water resources.
• Offers increased opportunities to maintain or expand production in environmentally sensitive locations.
• Offers more favourable market and environmental evaluation of products, including the provision of a more durable solution to future environmental standards.
• Drastically reduces or even eliminates liquid discharges and the associated water quality problems.
• Separates and recycles valuable resources.
• Preserves energy that can be used to reduce the cost of production and amortize capital costs
• Saves on capital and operating costs for effluent treatment in addition to savings on chemicals and heat.
• Reduces the use of fresh water

These prospects have encouraged the emergence of new and innovative zero liquid discharge or closed-cycle systems which, when implemented in a mill, will enable the recovery of clean process water from the effluent and recycle it back into the mill. For many years, the pulp and paper industry has been in pursuit of a closed-cycle pulp mill. The driving forces behind this prolonged effort vary from company to company. It appears that one of the overriding goals has been to leave at least one environmental stage altogether and to perhaps get government regulatory compliance agencies and environmentalists off the industry’s back once and for all.

Market leaders

UPM is one of the big player of the Chinese market active in producing communication papers, specialty paper and labels. Pulp is the raw material identified as the fiber of the future, because of the high competitive advantage, linked to positive impact on local society and sustainable production.  The Company has started a preparation phase to set a new pulp mill in Uruguay.

Nine Dragons Paper (Holdings) Limited is a world-famous environmentally friendly recovered paper based paper manufacturing group. The Group primarily produces and sells linerboard, including kraftlinerboard, testlinerboard and white top linerboard, high performance corrugating medium and coated duplex board. The Group also produces and sells recycled printing & writing paper and specialty paper. The Group is one of the leading recycled based paper manufacturer in capacity of the Chinese panorama.

Business in the paper making industry

The first Project Clevertech Asia Pacific run in paper making industry involved a public company with high level of documentation and quality control required from its supplier.

The customer required a complete end of line solution for 2 lines infeed A4 and A3 paper carton reams strapping, palletizing, pallet stretch wrapping, weighting, top frame insertion, strapping, labeling.

Another specific request concerned the on-line connection with customer GMES (ERP) to check pallet weight and approve strapping and labeling. Finally, the possibility to run 2 lines independently with maximum speed and to have additional infeed after palletizer.

Customer needed a high-level infeed solution and a system for heavy load cartons palletizing, together with a connection to customer ERP to check pallet weight, full integration with third party machinery and customer GMES system.

Clevertech solutions 

Clevertech achieved a solution composed of two palletizing machines Mod. Arrow AC 520 and fully integrated solution including carton and full pallet strapping machinery with a stretch wrapping system, weight checker and pallet labeler.

Clevertech offered a top level of integration that the customer never reached before. One single supplier able to fulfill all the request from palletizing to labeling, supported locally by Clevertech China factory based in Changshu City for project management and aftersales.

Clevertech also developed and achieved a system respecting a clean design approach.

Both lines reach the speed of 150 reams/min performing singularly while together they reach a speed of 182 reams/min.