China’s Paper Mills are Hungry for Source-Separated News Grades

The Paper Recycling Promotion Center (PRPC) of Japan shared some of their trade current trade data with ReMA on Japanese RP exports to China. According to Nobuyuki Kanatani of the PRPC, Chinese buyers were aggressively increasing their demand of Japanese recovered paper and move on the market with little to no vetting. Many Japanese paper companies were concerned about fiber shortages during H2 2018. Since U.S. exports of news grades to China are down nearly 60% over the year while Japanese exports went up 246%, it is evident that Chinese buyers prefer source separation as an indicator of quality.