The paper industry is an industrial sector that manufactures various types of paper and paperboard. The product range includes: pulp, machine-made paper and paperboard, processed paper, handmade paper, etc. Papermaking is one of the four major inventions of ancient China. The improvement by Cai Lun in the Eastern Han Dynasty laid the technical foundation. Papermaking began to spread eastward to Korea and Japan in the early 7th century (during the late Eastern Han and early Tang Dynasties), then westward to Samarkand in the 8th century, followed by Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo in the 10th century, Morocco in the 11th century, India in the 13th century, and Italy in the 14th century, and then spread to Germany, the United Kingdom and other places. Modern paper industry is an important basic raw material industry for the country, with the attribute of a circular economy where raw materials are renewable and products are recyclable.
China is a major paper-producing country in the world. In 2023, the output of mechanical paper and paperboard was approximately 144 million tons, and there were about 2,500 production enterprises across the country. Currently, the industry has made progress in digitalization and intelligent transformation, actively applying technologies such as industrial internet, artificial intelligence, and big data. At the same time, under the guidance of green and low-carbon and sustainable development policies, the paper industry focuses on energy conservation, emission reduction, and circular economy. According to the relevant policies of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the information from the person in charge of the Climate Department, the paper industry is expected to be included in the national carbon emission trading market by 2027. The Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau has issued a notice, including the paper industry in the scope of national greenhouse gas emission reporting and verification work in 2025. In 2025, the German paper industry was significantly impacted by the economic crisis, with its turnover dropping by approximately 3%. Guangxi held a special meeting on the development of integrated forestry-pulp-paper industry, aiming to build a global highland for the forestry-pulp-paper industry.
The paper-making industry is an important sector closely related to the development of the national economy and the construction of social civilization.
In economically developed countries, the growth rate of paper and paperboard consumption is in line with the growth rate of their gross domestic product. The role played by modern paper industry in the modern economy has increasingly attracted worldwide attention and is recognized internationally as an "endless" industry. In economically developed countries such as the United States, Canada, Japan, Finland, and Sweden, the paper industry has become one of the top ten pillar manufacturing industries in their national economies. The characteristics of modern paper industry are different from those of general consumer goods industries. It is a technology, capital, resource, and energy-intensive industry with significant scale benefits and a continuous and efficient production foundation. In the total product volume, more than 80% is used as production materials in fields such as news, publishing, printing, commodity packaging, and other industries, while less than 20% is used for direct consumption by people. The paper industry has a wide range of connections and involves industries such as forestry, agriculture, machinery manufacturing, chemicals, thermal power, transportation, and environmental protection. It has a certain拉动作用 on the economies of upstream and downstream industries. Today， countries around the world have regarded the production and consumption levels of paper and paperboard as one of the important indicators for measuring a country's modernization level and civilization degree.
