The end of the year is approaching the recovery of demand for packaging paper industry began to "small steps forward"

Recently, including the head of the paper enterprises Mountain Eagle International, Nine Dragons Paper, including packaging paper enterprises, one after another issued a price increase letter, the rate of increase of more than 20 yuan / ton to 50 yuan / ton, the rate of increase fluctuation is small, but the industry known as "small steps up", and is expected to usher in a wave of "big rise! "

Meanwhile.

At the same time, the recent scale of the paper mill part of the base is also released one after another in December 2022 to January 2023 downtime maintenance plan.

Zhuochuang Information analyst Li Li told the Securities Daily reporter, "Overall, boxboard corrugated paper supply exceeds demand pattern has not changed." At the same time, Li Li expects that the packaging paper industry short-term market or present a stage range oscillation situation.

Beginning in early December, under the leadership of Nine Dragons Paper and Mountain Eagle International, the two leading enterprises, packaging paper companies set off the second round of large-scale downtime maintenance program for the year.

On December 4, Mountain Eagle International announced that 17 paper machines at five domestic production bases will be shut down for 10 to 29 days between January 6 and February 3, 2023, with an expected production cut of about 312,000 tons according to the designed capacity, the vast majority of which will be for boxboard corrugated; Nine Dragons Paper, following an announcement early in the month of the shutdowns of some of the paper machines at its Tianjin, Quanzhou and Dongguan bases to cut production in December, announced another announcement on December 19 that some paper machines in Dongguan will be shut down to cut production. On December 19th, it also released the Spring Festival downtime schedule for Dongguan and Taicang bases, with the earliest downtime being January 5th, 2023.

July this year, packaging paper enterprises experienced the first half of the industry's weak demand, the end of the lack of price increases and inventory accumulation, opened a large-scale shutdown shutdown. CICC expects the industry in August to September this year to reduce production by more than 1 million tons. Since entering the fourth quarter, the demand level is still no improvement, "peak season is not prosperous" market paper prices are falling.

"The year-end round of some paper mills issued a rotation stopping plan, in the short term, or good for the region's paper mills shipments." Li Li told the "Securities Daily" reporter said, the overall view of the demand side of the slow recovery, the release of new orders is insufficient, on the market before the Spring Festival or limited support.

According to Zhuochuang information observation, after the announcement of the shutdown maintenance plan, from the market price change, the shutdown is more concentrated for the South China region, some paper mills up 20 yuan to 50 yuan / ton. According to the reporter's observation, Mountain Eagle International and Nine Dragons Paper had just announced a price increase, but in recent days and again announced a price increase, frequent price increases action declared the pricing power of the paper mills, also known as the industry, "small steps" type of price increases.

Can the current short-term stimulation of demand to pull the industry out of the trough? A new round of downtime maintenance, packaging paper prices will dip again? In response to this issue, CICC analysts said to the "Securities Daily" reporter, "the current industry is generally facing weak demand + high cost + raw material shortage triple predicament, tons of earnings and valuation levels at the bottom of the past ten years, continue to explore the magnitude is limited."

Benefit from "paper instead of plastic" "waste ban" and other policies, the packaging paper industry was originally favored, but in 2022 the industry is in the "high cost, weak demand "The double squeeze, fell into a trough period.

"So far this year, corrugated and containerboard have broken the seasonal characteristics several times, and there has been a super-seasonal decline." Zhuochuang information analyst Xu Ling told the Securities Daily reporter. According to seasonal patterns, the probability of corrugated and containerboard prices rising in December is greater than the probability of falling. However, from the current understanding of the terminal consumption situation, the overall increment is limited, New Year's Day, Christmas and other holidays for downstream demand support is not obvious.