Overview of the Development of Paper Printing and Packaging Industry

At present, China's packaging industry has established a relatively complete system covering the entire life cycle of products, including design, production, testing, circulation, and recycling. It is divided into three categories: packaging materials, packaging products, and packaging equipment, and five sub industries: paper packaging, plastic packaging, metal packaging, glass packaging, and bamboo and wood packaging. In recent years, the packaging industry has steadily expanded in scale, optimized in structure, continuously strengthened in strength, and continuously risen in status. Its contribution to serving national strategies, adapting to people's livelihood needs, building a manufacturing powerhouse, and promoting economic development has significantly increased. The packaging industry has become an important component of China's manufacturing system. Specifically, China's packaging industry has the following characteristics:

1) From the perspective of the development scale of China's packaging industry, its output value and influence are increasing day by day. Since 2009, the total output value of China's packaging industry has surpassed that of Japan, becoming the second largest packaging industry country in the world after the United States. The packaging industry in our country has a large social demand and increasing technological content, and has become a supporting industry with important influence on economic and social development.

2) From the perspective of market composition in the packaging industry, paper packaging is currently one of the largest sub sectors in China's packaging industry. According to the 2022 data from the China Packaging Federation, the operating income of enterprises above a certain scale in the manufacturing of paper and cardboard containers accounts for 24.77% of the total operating income of enterprises above a certain scale in the entire packaging industry. It is expected that the paper packaging industry market will continue to strengthen in the future. On the one hand, paper packaging products are closely related to macroeconomic growth. With the steady growth of the domestic economy, the strengthening of consumption will drive the continuous increase in demand for industries including paper packaging; On the other hand, paper packaging has environmental friendliness, cost advantages, and strong substitutability for other packaging. With the increasing emphasis on environmental protection in China, the proportion of plastic packaging will show a decreasing trend. It is expected that plastic packaging will gradually be replaced by paper packaging and metal packaging, and the proportion of paper packaging will further increase in the future.

2. Market size of paper printing and packaging industry
1) Current Status of Global Market Size
Paper packaging is one of the most commonly used packaging materials. According to data, the global paper and cardboard packaging market size was 213.4 billion US dollars in 2021, and is expected to maintain a compound annual growth rate of 6.3% from 2021 to 2028. By 2028, the paper and cardboard packaging market size will reach 327.5 billion US dollars.
The recyclability of paper and paper packaging, advocacy policies by governments to reduce the use of plastic products, and the increasing environmental awareness among consumers are the main driving factors for the growth of the global paper and cardboard packaging market. In March 2022, the 5th United Nations Environment Assembly resumed its session in Nairobi and passed the "Resolution to End Plastic Pollution (Draft)", aiming to complete a legally binding global agreement draft by the end of 2024, heralding the birth of the world's first "plastic limit order". Under the trend of global plastic reduction, environmentally friendly packaging such as paper packaging will maintain high-speed growth. From the perspective of application fields, paper packaging can be applied in food and beverage, healthcare, personal home care, electronic products and other fields. It is expected that paper packaging in the food and beverage industry will achieve significant growth with the development of the pre packaged food industry and the promotion of paper packaging materials; From a geographical perspective, the Asia Pacific region, benefiting from relatively high population growth, the development of terminal industries, and the improvement of retail industry network construction, will be the main growth contributing region of the global paper and cardboard packaging market.

2) The current situation of market size in our country
① The industry's various scale indicators are basically stable with minimal fluctuations
According to the report, in 2022, there will be 2827 enterprises above designated size in China's paper and cardboard container industry, an increase of 310 compared to last year; Accumulated operating revenue of 304.547 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of -4.59%; The cumulative total profit of the national paper and cardboard container industry reached 11.377 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of -15.61%; The national paper and cardboard container industry has achieved a cumulative import and export total of 10.03 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 13.88%. From 2020 to 2022, the overall changes in various scale indicators of China's paper and cardboard container industry were relatively small, and the industry scale and profitability remained basically stable.
② Paper printing packaging is one of the categories with the highest proportion of operating income and total profit in China's packaging industry
According to data released by the China Packaging Federation, from 2020 to 2022, the operating income of China's paper and cardboard container industry accounted for 28.66%, 26.51%, and 24.77% of the total operating income of the packaging industry, respectively; The proportion of the total profit of enterprises above the industry scale to the total profit of the packaging industry is 23.63%, 18.62%, and 18.03%, respectively. Paper printing packaging has become the main force in China's packaging industry.

3. Development Trends of Paper Printing and Packaging Industry
1) Industry concentration has increased
Throughout the years, China's paper printing and packaging industry has been characterized by a large number of enterprises and a relatively small number of enterprises above a certain scale. According to the data, the total sales revenue of China's top 100 printing enterprises in 2022 is about 158.8 billion yuan, and the entry threshold for the top 100 enterprises is 388 million yuan. As the largest sub industry of China's printing industry, the packaging and printing industry occupies the majority of the top 100 printing industry rankings. However, the degree of industry intensification is still relatively low, and most enterprises mainly focus on traditional printing and packaging business. There are relatively few enterprises with the ability to provide overall packaging solutions. By comparison, the CR10 of the paper printing and packaging industry in the United States is over 70%, while in Australia it is around 90%, far higher than the current CR10 concentration in China.
In recent years, the upstream paper industry of paper printing and packaging has been affected by stricter environmental policies and supply side reforms, resulting in a large number of small and medium-sized paper enterprises exiting the market; At the same time, downstream customers in the paper printing and packaging industry have increasingly high requirements for product quality and comprehensive service capabilities of packaging suppliers; Under the dual factors of supply and demand mentioned above, small and medium-sized paper printing and packaging enterprises are at a competitive disadvantage in both procurement and sales, and small and medium-sized enterprises with backward production capacity face the dilemma of being eliminated. With the gradual realization of natural clearance of outdated production capacity, the concentration of China's paper printing and packaging industry is expected to increase.

2) The application and promotion of intelligent and digital concepts in printing and packaging production modes and packaging products
With the popularization of cloud computing, big data, mobile internet, and artificial intelligence, digitization and intelligence are gradually changing the needs and ecology of the packaging and printing industry, establishing new application scenarios, production processes, and business service modes for packaging and printing.
Packaging and printing enterprises are the key for brand owners to achieve customization and intelligence, and the core is for packaging and printing enterprises to break through many key technological nodes of intelligence, intensification, digitization, and customization. This customized attribute packaging driven by data and intelligence has brought a new industry ecosystem, new application scenarios, new service models, as well as technological innovation and application needs for brand owners and packaging printing enterprises to "go cloud, use data, and increase intelligence".
With the application of big data, cloud computing, 5G, and AI in packaging and printing, packaging products are continuously improving their functionality through printing and embedding digital information components such as RFID, deepening into mass consumption scenarios, and enriching community experiences. As a result, the packaging and printing industry has established new application scenarios in the fields of digitization and intelligence, and brought new development opportunities for the industry in terms of user interaction experience and applications.

3) Environmental protection and green packaging will become industry trends
In recent years, the negative impact of human social activities on the ecological environment has become increasingly prominent. The concept of low-carbon living has deeply rooted in people's hearts, and the market's requirements for packaging have also kept pace with the times. The concept of green packaging, which represents environmental friendliness, has gradually entered the public's vision. At present, there are over 200000 domestic packaging production enterprises, but more than 80% of them mainly produce traditional packaging products and lack advanced green technologies. In the future, paper printing and packaging enterprises should not only focus on the quality, performance, and cost of packaging products, but also pay attention to the impact of packaging products on the environment and energy consumption. Green paper packaging has become an inevitable choice for sustainable development of paper printing and packaging enterprises.
In the future, with the gradual improvement and implementation of industry green printing standards and green printing evaluation systems, the environmental assessment of paper packaging enterprises will be more comprehensive. At the same time as the current government strengthens environmental supervision and eliminates outdated production capacity, it will inevitably increase guidance on strengthening green packaging policies, provide greater policy support to green packaging enterprises, and ultimately accelerate the transformation of China's packaging industry towards a green model.