A few days ago, LongChen Company, a large industrial paper factory in Taiwan, held an online news conference. Due to the impact of the mainland epidemic, the company suffered a loss of NT $627 million before self-settlement of taxes in the first 11 months, with a poor performance. Looking forward to 2023, due to the gradual release of the mainland epidemic, LongChen company is optimistic that economic activities will recover, and it is expected to regain growth after the fastest Chinese New Year. The company will spare no effort to develop the carton business and improve the self-use rate of industrial paper in mainland factories.

Due to the gradual release of the mainland epidemic, LongChen is optimistic that economic activities will recover.

At the press conference, Wang Ruirong, chief financial officer and spokesman of LongChen Company, said that with the gradual loosening of the control of the mainland's epidemic, the factors hindering the development of the mainland's industrial paper industry in the past three years would be eliminated, and the company will usher in recovery in 2023.

Wang Ruirong said that as the fourth largest industrial paper mill in the mainland, LongChen has 80% of its revenue from the mainland, and the prosperity of the industrial paper is highly related to the overall economy. Since the beginning of this year, due to the intermittent closure and control of the epidemic in mainland China, its economic momentum has weakened, and all walks of life have declined. LongChen Company has also been affected.

However, the control of epidemic in Chinese mainland is relaxing. According to Taiwan and international experience, the epidemic will peak in about three months, and then begin to slow down. In addition, the weather is gradually getting hotter, so it is estimated that the mainland industrial paper market will have a chance to recover as soon as next February after the Lunar New Year, which will help the company's operation return to normal.

On the other hand, after two years of epidemic, paper industry peers in mainland eased the contradiction between market supply and demand by means of partial halt and delayed transactions, so that the price of industrial paper would not collapse. Wang Ruirong said that every factory's inventory has declined, which is also conducive to the next industrial recovery.

So far, no factories on both sides of LongChen have been shut down due to the epidemic, and all factories have maintained normal operation. According to statistics, more than 10% of the employees in mainland factories of LongChen have been diagnosed, but most of them can return to work in 3-5 days, which has little impact on the operation of the factory.

The layout of industrial paper is coming to an end, and the company will spare no effort to develop the carton business.

For the subsequent layout planning, LongChen Company pointed out that the industrial paper industry is closely related to the overall economy. The gap between the low and peak seasons is obvious, and the market boom is sometimes high or low. According to past experience, when the market situation is not good, it is the time to expand production and improve the basic skills of the company, so that it can catch a ride after the market demand bottoms up and quickly seize the market.

At present, LongChen Company has 4 paper mills, 13 green packaging plants and 29 environmental protection stations for waste paper on both sides of the Taiwan and Chinese mainland. Among them, the last 350,000 ton paper machine in Hubei LongChen is planned to be completed and put into production in the fourth quarter of next year, one year ahead of schedule, which can fully seize the operating opportunities in 2024. After that, the layout of industrial paper in mainland came to an end and it will spare no effort to develop the green packaging carton business.

LongChen Company pointed out that the industrial paper produced by Taiwan LongChen was shipped through its own carton factory, with a self-use rate of about 30%. With the recent production of Nankan, Shengang and Luzhu plants, the self-use rate is expected to gradually increase to more than 50%. But the self-use rate of industrial paper produced in mainland China is about 10% at present. With the production of Hunan Carton Factory in the second half of next year, the proportion of carton revenue will also grow year by year.

LongChen Company also said that the mainland promoted the Plastic Ban, aiming to completely ban non degradable plastic products by 2025, which is still being implemented in various regions without interruption. According to the statistics of the Paper Association last year, the demand for industrial paper in Chinese mainland is about 63 million tons a year, and the demand for paper packaging of major substitutes under the plastic ban is expected to increase by more than 5 million tons.