Abstract
The demand for paper and pulp is increasing rapidly, as market economy in China is making expands. As a consequence, a bottleneck in supply chain has resulted featuring an unfavorable supply structure and supply shortage of raw materials which is greatly restricting the development of the Chinese paper industry. In relation to this situation, the Chinese Government announced goals to change the supply structure of raw materials by increasing use of wood fiber and other by-products, and to expand recovery and recycling of waste paper, additionally to aim toward more effective use of non-wood fiber (mostly botanical fiber). The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether the predicted goals could be achieved. Based on the analyses of data and experts' interviews, following results were obtained: (1)Adjusting supply structure of the Chinese raw materials within a short period will be very difficult to achieve. (2)During the present transitional period, primary wood materials shouldn't be the sole main raw material. Raw materials should include the increased use of waste paper, use of wood material should be raised little by little, and similarly reasonable application of non-wood material should be encouraged. (3)Although foreign capital is already invested in construction of raw material plantation and production bases, a remaining important subject is to better anticipate future tendencies of the Chinese paper industry.
