How does the hottest paper industry face the WTO

How does the paper industry face the WTO (Part 1)

after more than 13 years of hard negotiations, China will officially join the WTO by taking the opportunity of the relevant agreement reached between China and the United States in November 1999 and the agreement reached with the European Union in 2000. The practice of our country for more than 20 years has proved that the earlier the opening-up, the faster the development of production. Reform and opening-up is an inevitable way, and China's entry into WTO is an inevitable choice for building good external conditions for economic development. It also shows that China, the world's largest potential market, not only allows China to develop itself, but also needs to be conditionally opened to the world, so that all countries in the world can participate in the development. This is conducive to borrowing foreign qualifications and external driving forces, promoting the further development of reform, breaking through the bottleneck in the reform process, and accelerating economic development. However, China has been under the economic system for a long time, and there are many problems to be solved in order to achieve the integration with the international market economy. Therefore, our tensile testing machine is generally negotiating while studying and solving problems. Therefore, it took more than a decade to gradually create some basic conditions to adapt to China's entry into the WTO. However, the impact of domestic brands at different stages of development and different types of industries after China's entry into WTO is different. In general, opportunities and challenges coexist. We need to carefully analyze them according to the specific situation and take corresponding measures. When adding "fuel", we should be prepared to meet the challenges. The brief view is as follows:

1 the characteristics of modern pulp and paper industry and the current situation of China's paper industry:

1.1 compared with general traditional industries, modern paper industry is a capital and technology intensive industry, which is similar to heavy chemical industry and metallurgical industry. Its scale economy and technical equipment level have a much more important impact on competitiveness than general labor-intensive industries, Its development and cleaner production need a lot of capital and advanced technology investment

1.2 during the planned economy period, Chinese paper workers did not receive the same attention, such as metallurgy and heavy chemical industry, and the national investment was extremely limited. Since the reform and opening up, the rapid growth of output has depended on the disorderly development of simple and small enterprises in villages and towns, which has distorted the nature of this modern industry to a large extent. On the whole, it has become a non modern and backward industry with low efficiency and heavy pollution, which is still in the immature stage of development

1.3 since the 1990s, the domestic paper industry has received little policy protection, the import efficiency has been declining, and the entry of foreign capital has also been limited

1.4 domestic textile, machinery, clothing and other industries export much higher than import, and have become a major export earner. However, the paper industry has increasingly become a major import user of foreign exchange from the basic self-sufficiency type in the early stage of reform and opening up. In 1999, a total of 6.913 million tons of paper and paperboard and paper products, 3.098 million tons of commercial pulp, plus 2.517 million tons of waste paper, the total amount reached 12.527 million tons, and the foreign exchange consumption was 5.6 billion US dollars. But the export is insignificant, which is worse than that of steel and chemical industry

2 views on the impact of China's entry into WTO on the paper industry:

2.1 it is generally believed that China's entry into WTO will increase the price of imported paper, competitive advantage and impact the domestic market due to the reduction of tariffs. The second is to open the investment market, reduce the restrictions on foreign investment, and give preferential treatment to foreign-funded enterprises, which will increase the competitive pressure on the original backward domestic enterprises. Therefore, it is believed that after China's entry into WTO, paper-making enterprises will fall into great difficulties. Some departments estimate that after China's entry into the WTO, the impact of paper-making enterprises will reach 60%. Due to the downsizing and bankruptcy of some enterprises, the number of unemployed people can reach about 700000. Domestic dependence on imported paper has further increased, and the industrial situation is grim. Therefore, they believe that the harm outweighs the benefit

2.2 some people believe that in recent years, the domestic paper industry brand is in a very difficult situation, which is largely related to its low technology and quality. Compared with a capital and technology intensive modern paper industry, the downstream industries with paper as the main raw material, such as printing, publishing, packaging, cigarette and other industries, need less capital for modernization, and the construction cycle is shorter. They can realize their modernization faster, which will reduce the effectiveness of garbage removal and transportation reduction, and it is inevitable to put forward higher quality requirements for paper products. Under the current import tariff rate, the performance price ratio of some imported paper is still better than that of domestic products, and users have the right to choose. For example, domestic coated paper is overstocked and imported in large quantities. There is no other way out for the paper industry without the microcomputer controlled universal testing machine produced by Jinan new era Gold Testing Instrument Co., Ltd., which meets the national and international production standards, eliminating the inferior and strengthening the strong, and improving the performance price ratio of products

2.3 from the perspective of the existing tariff rate, the tax rate impacting the main varieties of domestic paper has been reduced to 12% - 15% (commercial pulp has been reduced to zero). Although it is higher than 5% - 6% in some developed countries, it is lower than the average 20% in Southeast Asia and South Asia. It is much lower than the 50% - 100% tax rate of China's long-term protected automobile industry. A country needs some protection for its infant industries, but over protection and lack of external pressure make it more difficult to change the backward face. It should also be noted that foreign-funded enterprises have developed rapidly in recent years. Although their paper without import tax has pressure on the overall market, it has not crushed the domestic strong. It is a good thing to turn pressure into a driving force for self-improvement and development. We should welcome foreign investment and use their capital and technology to develop together with domestic enterprises in competition, which is beneficial to building China into a strong country with paper industry

2.4 based on the above thinking, from the perspective of industrial development strategy, it is believed that after China's entry into WTO, it will be conducive to encouraging domestic paper enterprises to accelerate the adjustment and optimization of industrial organization, management system, product structure and raw material structure and technological progress through more fierce market competition; It is also conducive to attracting foreign investment and solving the lack of capital and technical difficulties in industrial development. This will accelerate the modernization of China's paper industry and solidly improve the competitiveness of the industry. Moreover, some problems have long existed. Even if China does not join the WTO, it cannot help but work hard to speed up the solution in order to achieve the survival and development of the industry. For example, in order to meet the requirements of national environmental protection, meet the market demand for increasing production of medium and high-grade products, reduce waste, improve labor productivity and reduce costs, the impact of forcing existing enterprises to accelerate adjustment and transformation may exceed 60%. (to be continued)