The paper industry is undergoing intensive price adjustments, with leading companies announcing plans to raise prices. Cost advantages are helping top-tier enterprises improve their profitability.

Recently, the domestic paper industry has seen a flurry of price adjustments covering multiple product categories, including cultural paper, packaging paper, and household paper. The effective dates for these price hikes are concentrated from late February to early March. Among them, Jiulong Paper’s eight major production bases announced a price increase of 50 yuan per ton for packaging paper; leading white cardstock manufacturer Jin Guang Paper announced a price hike of 200 yuan per ton starting in March; and other leading cultural paper companies, such as Sun Paper, have also released plans to raise prices in March.

According to monitoring data from Zhuochuang Information, as of March 3, the average market prices for imported softwood pulp and hardwood pulp in China were RMB 5,241 per ton and RMB 4,565 per ton, respectively—changes that were relatively small compared to the same period last month. The cost of key raw materials for double-adhesive paper declined slightly by 0.08% from the same period last month. Sun Yue, a cultural paper industry analyst at Zhuochuang Information, revealed that over the past six months, paper mills’ theoretical gross profit margins have mostly remained in negative territory. Improving profitability is the core internal driver behind this round of price increases; meanwhile, some paper companies are adjusting their prices now to leave room for future pulp price hikes.

According to data from Zhuochuang Information, as of the end of February 2026, the number of days of enterprise inventory for both double-glue paper and double-coated copper paper rose by 10.27% and 6.32%, respectively, compared to the previous month. Currently, downstream printing plants have gradually resumed work, but a new round of publishing bidding has yet to be launched, resulting in limited growth in social orders. Downstream buyers are cautious about picking up goods, and some factories continue to accept orders at February’s prices. As a result, there is considerable resistance to implementing this round of price increases. Sun Yue predicts that cultural paper prices may see a slight rise from March to April, but from May to June, under the pressure of market negotiations following the publishing bidding, paper prices could shift from rising to falling.

Despite short-term demand pressures, leading enterprises with integrated forest-pulp-paper advantages are seeing their cost advantages become increasingly prominent. According to data from Zhuochuang Information, in 2025, the CR4 for cultural paper—the combined market share of the industry’s top four companies—reached 46.70%, an increase of 3.7 percentage points from 2024, indicating a significant rise in industry capacity concentration. Large-scale paper companies are optimizing their raw material structures through integrated forest-pulp-paper strategies, effectively mitigating the risks associated with fluctuating costs. Among them, Sun Paper has a total pulp and paper production capacity exceeding 12 million tons across its three major bases—Shandong and Guangxi in China, as well as Laos overseas—and its self-sufficiency rate for pulp reaches 60%. According to the financial results released by Jiulong Paper at the end of February for the six-month period ending December 31, 2025, its net profit attributable to shareholders surged by 318.8% year-on-year, with the core driving force behind this growth being the cost advantages brought about by its integrated forest-pulp-paper strategy. Yuan Shuai, Deputy Secretary-General of the Zhongguancun IoT Industry Alliance, stated that the integrated forest-pulp-paper model is helping to cushion the industry against cyclical fluctuations.