Gangbei District in Guigang, Guangxi, is emerging as one of China’s more interesting paper-industry clusters.

From January through July 2026, the output value of above-designated-size paper and paper-products companies in the district increased 24.37% year over year, according to local industry authorities.

That growth is notable.

But the bigger story is how Gangbei is organizing the industry.

Rather than relying on isolated paper mills, the district is building a connected ecosystem around:

pulp,

papermaking,

tissue converting,

specialty paper,

moulded fibre,

energy,

and waterway logistics.

The China-ASEAN Household Paper Industrial Park now brings together 35 pulp and paper enterprises, forming what local authorities describe as a complete chain from pulping through papermaking to downstream converting.

Gangbei’s competitive strategy is increasingly about lowering the cost between each stage of that chain.

Pulp and steam are already inside the industrial ecosystem

One advantage is access to shared upstream resources.

Within the Guangdong-Guangxi Circular Industrial Park, local pulp production and Huadian steam supply can serve nearby paper producers directly.

That matters because pulp and energy are two of the largest input costs in papermaking.

Earlier development of the cluster already demonstrated this logic. By 2023, the China-ASEAN Household Paper Industrial Park had added 95 production lines and established around 1 million tonnes per year of paper and pulp capacity.

Local fluff-pulp producer Hanggang Materials has also cited the combination of energy supply, upstream and downstream pulp-and-paper businesses, port access and water transport as reasons for locating in Guigang.

That is industrial-cluster economics in practice.

A mill does not compete only through the efficiency of its paper machine.

It also competes through:

how far pulp travels,

how much steam costs,

how efficiently products reach converters,

and how cheaply finished goods reach customers.

The next stage is higher-value paper products

Gangbei is also trying to move beyond basic tissue production.

Current development priorities include:

packaging paper,

specialty paper,

moulded fibre,

and deeper paper-product converting.

Projects involving Lee & Man Paper, Lezan Phase II and Longpai recycled pulp are among those being advanced, according to the latest local government-backed reporting.

That suggests the region is trying to capture more value from the fibre before it leaves the industrial park.

Instead of shipping only pulp or parent rolls, more of the material can potentially leave as:

converted tissue,

finished packaging,

specialty grades,

or moulded products.

Each additional converting step keeps more manufacturing value inside the cluster.

Longpai shows the export strategy already working

The cluster is also becoming increasingly export-oriented.

Guigang Longpai Paper reported household-paper exports of more than RMB 60 million in the first half of 2026, up 100.7% year over year.

Its products are sold internationally, including into markets in Asia, Australia, Canada and South America.

That makes export logistics increasingly important.

For tissue and other converted paper products, freight can materially affect competitiveness because many finished products are bulky relative to their value.

Reducing the distance and cost between factory and seaport therefore matters almost as much as reducing production cost inside the factory.

The Pinglu Canal changes that logistics calculation

This is where the timing becomes particularly interesting.

The Pinglu Canal officially opened to navigation on September 16, 2026, creating a new river-to-sea route from Guangxi toward the Beibu Gulf.

The 134.2-kilometer canal can accommodate vessels of up to 5,000 tonnes and is designed to strengthen the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor linking western China with ASEAN and other international markets.

Officials say the new route can shorten inland waterway transport by more than 560 kilometers compared with routes through Guangzhou and reduce overall logistics costs by an estimated 18% to 30%.

Those are broad corridor-level estimates, not paper-industry-specific savings.

But the strategic implication for Guigang is clear.

A paper cluster already built around the Xijiang waterway now has a more direct route toward the Beibu Gulf and ASEAN markets.

For exporters of:

tissue,

specialty paper,

moulded fibre,

and other converted products,

that could strengthen the economics of manufacturing in Guangxi rather than farther downstream near traditional coastal export hubs.

Gangbei is trying to compete with the entire system

This may ultimately be the most important part of the 24.37% growth figure.

The district is not simply adding more paper-machine capacity.

It is trying to improve the economics surrounding that capacity.

Pulp nearby.

Steam nearby.

Converters nearby.

Shared industrial infrastructure.

Waterway access.

And now a shorter route toward the sea.

That reduces some of the disadvantages inland manufacturing regions traditionally face compared with coastal industrial centres.

It also helps explain why Gangbei is actively trying to attract additional manufacturing transferred from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

The growth figure still needs perspective

The 24.37% increase is a local industrial output-value measure, so it should not automatically be interpreted as a 24.37% increase in physical paper tonnage.

Higher production, new projects, product mix and pricing can all affect output value.

At the national level, China’s paper and paper-products manufacturing sector reported business revenue growth of 5.2% during January-July 2026 and profit growth of 27.6%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Those measures are not directly comparable with Gangbei’s local output-value figure.

But they reinforce that the paper sector is operating in a broader environment of improving profitability, while Gangbei’s reported industrial expansion is particularly rapid.

The next test is whether the cluster can move up the value chain

A large cluster does not automatically mean a competitive cluster.

Gangbei will still have to demonstrate that its model can deliver:

competitive energy costs,

reliable fibre supply,

high machine utilization,

quality consistency,

and profitable export growth.

The next stage will be particularly important as larger projects move into operation.

If those projects simply add commodity capacity, competition could intensify.

If the cluster succeeds in expanding into specialty paper, high-quality tissue, moulded fibre and deeper converting, it has a better chance of capturing more value per tonne.

That is why Gangbei’s paper story is becoming more interesting than the latest production-growth number.

The district is trying to build a paper industry where the competitive advantage comes not from one machine, but from the distance—and cost—between every machine in the value chain.

With the Pinglu Canal now open, that chain increasingly extends all the way from pulp and steam in Guigang to customers across ASEAN and other international markets.

Last Updated on 22/09/2026 by Jota Machinery