With the establishment of one of the major forestry projects in the country, the "Project for the Construction of Forestry Industry Bases Focusing on Fast-growing and High-yield Timber Forests in Key Areas," in particular, "Some Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Raw Material Forest Bases in Papermaking Industry" (hereinafter referred to as "Opinions") The introduction of the plantation indicates that the development of planted forests in China will enter the market-orientated track. This makes domestic paper-making companies, which are increasingly dependent on imported raw materials, face the prospect of owning their own timber supply base, they must also face more than ten years ago. Foreign investors have already invested in China to build commercial forests. The relevant experts pointed out that domestic paper-making enterprises can build their own raw material forest base as soon as possible without delay.
The surge in imports of commercial pulp has continuously increased the risk in the paper industry. Due to the rapid development of China's paper industry and the lack of raw materials, the market will have a large demand for commercial pulp for a long period of time, but the domestic paper mills are currently In the procurement of commercial pulp, a long-term stable contract has not yet been established. Basically, it is mainly to purchase spot goods. Such a trade method has made the cost of domestic papermaking industry greatly affected by changes in the price of pulp. Some suppliers in North America and North Europe have recently announced that they should be subject to a follow-up. If the price of pulp gradually rises, under the condition of continuous reduction of import paper tariffs, the domestic paper industry is bound to suffer huge impacts due to raw materials.
In the construction of papermaking raw material forests, foreign businessmen have already taken the lead. Its large-scale investment in afforestation began in 1988. Hong Kong Hanchang Company leased 25,000 mu of land in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, creating a fast-growing and high-yielding forest of Nanyang Zhangmu. By 1995, more than a dozen large multinational corporations had invested in the establishment of a forestry base in the south of the country. The total scale of the forestry base reached 12.385 million mu. According to statistics from the Guangdong Provincial Forestry Bureau, in recent years, eight international consortiums have entered the forestry industry in Guangdong. At the end of 1999, 96 province-wide forestry projects with foreign capital were used, and the amount of forestry contracts reached 930 million U.S. dollars, and 330 million acres of fast-growing and high-yield forests were created.
Insiders pointed out that foreign investment in afforestation enthusiasm is so high, it is optimistic about China's future paper market, and to achieve the integration of forestry and paper management in situ afforestation, on-site papermaking, scale development, production and marketing combined as the goal. According to the Guangdong Paper Association, at present, Singapore Asia Paper Co., Ltd. has 36 million mu of forest in Shaoguan and Qingyuan; Thai Shunhe Group has built 600 mu of seedling mound in Shanwei and completed nearly 80,000 mu of afforestation; Thailand Golden Beach Investment Co., Ltd. established about 100,000 mu of plantation in Taishan. The phenomenon of large-scale construction of fast-growing forest belts by foreign-funded enterprises in Guangdong indicates that foreign capital is actively controlling the source of raw materials in order to control production costs, grasp market opportunities, and seek to invest in the development of pulp mills.
At present, the fast-growing and high-yielding forestry paper base established by foreign companies has basically achieved the goal of high input and high output. For example, Asia Paper has planted 500,000 mu of fast-growing eucalyptus trees in Shaoguan. Under scientific management, it will enter the harvesting period after 6 years of planting, and the output per hectre can reach 6 cubic meters, and the average annual output of wood is 1 cubic meter. In contrast, Guangdong Province, the traditional crude rough planting of afforestation, the logging period of more than 10 years, less than 2 cubic meters per acre, the average annual output of only 0.2 cubic meters of acre.
According to the principle of national treatment, except for state-funded foreign-funded enterprises that cannot be enjoyed, other policies are treated equally. The supporting policy has not come out yet. On the other hand, it is just for the domestic enterprises to gain time. An industry insider once said, “From the history and current situation of the world paper industry, we can see who owns raw materials and who will own the paper tomorrow.â€