As the Spring Festival approaches, paper mills still have full orders for production and new orders continue. Some factories even changed their shutdown plans during the Spring Festival and continued to work overtime. Affected by the rising prices of waste paper and wood pulp raw materials, the raw paper market, which has been rising prices for several months, does not show any tendency to stop rising.

Affected by factors such as the recovery of downstream demand and the appreciation of the renminbi, carton prices have continued to rise since November 2020, and some companies’ carton quotations have even risen nearly twice. Affected by the rebound in customer demand, rising freight rates, and plastic bans, the price of cartons is expected to continue to show an upward trend in the short term. This round of carton price increases are multifaceted and far-reaching. In the face of the raging wave of raw paper price increases, most cardboard mills have followed the pace of paper price increases and set off multiple rounds of upward adjustments. At the same time, due to the surge in orders and the control of the epidemic in some regions, a large number of cardboard factories in East China, South China, and North China have already announced holiday plans while stopping receiving orders. Among them, some companies will have a holiday after completing their orders, and some companies currently only accept orders after the year.

The increase in pulp prices in this round has had a huge impact on carton production. Unlike cardboard factories that can adjust prices flexibly, carton factories at the bottom of the paper packaging industry chain face greater production and operating risks. Because the price increase lags behind, even if the price has risen several times, the price adjustment still cannot cover the production cost caused by the increase in the price of raw materials. With the Spring Festival approaching, end customers will also have holidays, and carton factories will inevitably absorb part of the pressure on their own.

As a necessary part of product transportation packaging, carton is an important part of daily ceramic export packaging. The price of product cartons is closely related to the export price of ceramics. In the future, the quotations of products will definitely be affected by this round of carton price increases.