In 2000 China imported some 3.4 million tons of wood pulp and 3.7 million tons of waste paper. Just one year later these imports had jumped to 4.9 and 6.4 million tons respectively. The 2001 figures reveal a staggering 38 percent of China’s total paper pulp requirements being met from imports. The cost in that year alone was over US$2.7 billion.

Factories in China are threatened with closure due to a lack of essential raw materials. However the nation is rich in bamboo. This could be used to provide an alternative to the pulp presently being produced from broad-leaved timber sources. In addition, cultivating bamboo to provide a new source of pulp for papermaking would provide a boost for farmers' incomes and serve the interests of environmental protection.

Today China is also a major producer, consumer and importer of finished paper products. In 2001, total production and consumption of paper and cardboard ranked second in the world surpassed only by the USA. What happens in China is a matter of considerable interest within international papermaking industry circles.

A background of rapid economic development has led to increasingly difficult challenges for China’s domestic papermaking industry. Self-sufficiency has decreased from 91 percent in 1995 to just 87 percent in 2001. Many influences have come together to produce the bottleneck in the development of the papermaking industry. The most serious issues to be faced arise from the availability and quality of raw materials from domestic sources.

There is a significant gap between the resources available in China and those to be found in an international context. Some 63 percent of the raw materials used by overseas companies come from timber. But China has only some 4 percent of the world’s forested area. Viewed on a per capita basis, forests in China occupy some 21 percent and reserves run at 13 percent of world averages.

Years of over-exploitation have led to continual short supply of timber for industry. Recent measures to protect the natural forests have further impact on the imbalance between supply and demand with a drop in production of 36 million cubic metres between 2000 and 2001.

Annual consumption is forecast to rise to some 233 million cubic meters. This would be commensurate with a shortfall in supply of 60 to 70 million cubic metres. It would not be easy to satisfy the needs of the papermaking industry from such a source.

All this points to the development of bamboo pulp is the most effective solution. There are about 1,200 different kinds of bamboo. They are categorised into some 70 genera spread predominately across Asia, Africa and South America. The richest resources are to be found in China, which leads the world in the number of species, area occupied, felled reserves and commercial production.

China’s bamboo grows in latitudes from 18 to 35 degrees north and in longitudes from 92 to 122 degrees east. Put another way, the potential area for cultivation is an impressive 1,700 kilometers north to south by 3,000 kilometers wide. With more than 4 million hectares under bamboo, China has 25 percent of world resources. Currently some 9 million tons are felled annually.

With a semitropical monsoon climate to provide ideal growing conditions, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Guangxi, Fujian and Hunan all have rich resources of bamboo. Currently they have 17 million hectares under bamboo representing 40 percent of the national total. Reserves stand at 150 million tons with a capacity to bring nearly 7 million tons to market each year.

According to the experts concerned, developing a bamboo pulp industry could provide an effective response to the need to tackle the imbalance between supply and demand in the raw materials needed by our papermaking industry. It would be a viable means of filling the commercial gap and more importantly it would bring long-term benefits in the area of environmental protection.

(china.org.cn by Wu Nanlan, September 2, 2002)