What Makes Jingxing Paper Strong? The “Pulp–Paper–Box–Use” System Behind a Single Recycled Fiber

Jingxing’s real strength lies neither in a single grade of linerboard nor merely in locating capacity in Malaysia. It is organizing recovered fiber from the Yangtze River Delta, overseas recycled pulp, industrial packaging paper, corrugated board and boxes, and recycled tissue into a circular manufacturing system spanning “pulp–paper–box–use.”

Company Snapshot | 2025

1.6926 million tonnes — output reported in the association survey, ranking No. 18.

1.5513 million tonnes — Jingxing’s containerboard output.

492,400 tonnes — recycled pulp output from Phase I in Malaysia.

SECTION 01 · SCALE POSITION

No. 18 Is Only a Reference Point; the Real Question Is How Fiber Flows

The association ranking answers how much paper a company produced; it does not directly explain why that output can be sustained. Jingxing’s core products remain kraft linerboard, corrugating medium and white-top kraftliner. In 2025, it produced 1.5513 million tonnes and sold 1.4835 million tonnes of containerboard, generating revenue of RMB 4.016 billion.

According to its annual report, Jingxing’s procurement mix for containerboard is anchored by domestically recovered paper, with imported recycled fiber pulp filling the long-fiber gap. Domestically recovered paper accounted for approximately 80% by procurement weight. The company must simultaneously manage domestic recovered-paper price and quality volatility, a shortage of high-quality long fiber, and regulatory and logistics uncertainty associated with imported recycled pulp.

In 2025, Phase I in Malaysia produced 492,400 tonnes of recycled pulp, sold 306,400 tonnes externally and consumed 222,700 tonnes internally. Sales, internal consumption and current-period output cannot simply be added because beginning inventory and internal transfers are also involved. The key issue is not that Jingxing has 800,000 tonnes of overseas capacity, but whether the fiber can consistently meet the strength, cleanliness and cost requirements of different paper grades.

Research sources:China Paper Industry 2025 Annual Report; Jingxing Paper 2025 Annual Report

SECTION 02 · OVERSEAS FIBER

Malaysia Is Not a Stand-Alone Pulp Mill but a Second Pillar of Jingxing’s Fiber Strategy

Jingxing discloses that its overseas recycled pulp is produced in multiple grades and has been used in linerboard, unbleached hand towels, cement sack paper and unbleached tissue. Recovered paper sourced overseas is sorted, pulped and dried before entering the market as pulp sheets; mills still determine the substitution ratio based on fiber length, contaminants, strength and cost.

In 2025, Phase I in Malaysia operated at 61.55% capacity utilization for the full year and reached 96.49% in December, while the recycled-pulp-sheet business still recorded a gross margin of -8.60% for the year. In H1 2026, the business generated revenue of RMB 410 million and its gross margin turned positive at 3.45%. Output, operating rate and margin do not move in lockstep; sustainable profitability also depends on feedstock, energy, ocean freight, exchange rates, selling prices and customer mix.

The Asian Development Bank disclosed total investment of approximately USD 299 million in the Malaysian expansion and approved a USD 60 million loan to add a 600,000-tonne recycled packaging-paper line. Jingxing’s interim report states that Phase II was 90% complete as of the end of June 2026, with equipment commissioning scheduled to begin in November.

SECTION 03 · REGIONAL DELIVERY

The Regional Advantage Begins to Pay Off Only When Paper Becomes Boxes

Containerboard has a pronounced economic delivery radius, and corrugated board and boxes travel even less efficiently. Based in Pinghu and close to Zhapu Port, Jingxing serves a sales radius covering Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu. On the geographic basis used for total company revenue in 2025, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shanghai accounted for a combined 79.56%. This is not a national market-share figure; it shows that Jingxing’s core operations are anchored in the dense manufacturing, logistics, e-commerce and consumer-demand network of the Yangtze River Delta.

According to the company website, Pinghu Jingxing Packaging’s corrugated-board line has a design capacity of 100 million square meters per year, while its integrated flexographic boxmaking line can run at up to 24,000 boxes per hour. The 2025 annual report records actual corrugated box and board output of 102.77 million square meters and sales of 101.75 million square meters. Machine speed and nameplate capacity describe manufacturing conditions; actual output and sales are operating results.

Owning both paper mills and box plants, however, does not automatically produce higher margins. Gross margin for corrugated boxes and board was 5.53% in 2025 and 5.10% in H1 2026, versus 9.50% for containerboard in the same half-year. The value of vertical integration lies more in shortening lead times, validating paper performance, accommodating small batches and feeding failure data back upstream; it does not automatically transfer upstream margin downstream.

SECTION 04 · EXTENSION INTO TISSUE

From Packaging Paper to Tissue: A New Outlet for Recycled Fiber

In 2025, the company produced 147,800 tonnes of tissue base paper, up 7.33% year on year, and sold 2.6327 million cases of finished products. However, the annual report also states that more than 90% of tissue revenue still came from base-paper sales. Jingxing therefore cannot yet be described as a mature nationwide consumer-brand platform.

On 28 May 2026, the TM7 line under the 50,000-tonne-per-year recycled, environmentally friendly tissue technical-upgrade project started up and entered trial production. The company says the line uses 100% recycled fiber and a Fourdrinier multi-cylinder wet-creping process to make environmentally friendly hand towels. Start-up proves that trial production has begun; it does not prove that 50,000 tonnes of effective output has been achieved, nor that yield, sales, repeat purchasing and margins have stabilized.

Industrial packaging paper is engineered for compression strength, burst strength and box converting. Hand towels must instead address cleanliness, absorbency, feel, linting, odor and end-user experience. Only by grading, cleaning and re-engineering fiber for different uses can the circular system progress from “using more recovered paper” to “raising the value of each fiber.”

Research source:Start-up of the TM7 Recycled, Environmentally Friendly Tissue Project

SECTION 05 · THE STRONGEST COUNTERARGUMENT

Owning the Value Chain Does Not Mean the Value Chain Is Already Profitable

Jingxing’s combination of strengths is already visible: the Yangtze River Delta supplies both recovered paper and packaging demand; domestic sites combine containerboard production with box converting; the Malaysian operation adds recycled fiber supply and is extending into local papermaking; and tissue opens new applications for the fiber. Yet each stage has its own operating threshold.

In H1 2026, gross margins for containerboard, corrugated boxes and board, and recycled pulp sheets were 9.50%, 5.10% and 3.45%, respectively. This is not a ranking of business quality but a pressure map of the system. If downstream margins remain too thin, overseas projects run at high load without generating cash, or tissue reaches only trial production without repeat orders, then “pulp–paper–box–use” remains an asset connection rather than an operating closed loop.

SECTION 06 · PROOF POINTS

Five Metrics That Show Whether the System Is Truly Getting Stronger

01 | Fiber performance:Internal-consumption ratio, delivered cost, batch quality and actual displacement of wood pulp or other long-fiber furnish.

02 | Containerboard performance:Comparable net selling price, gross profit per tonne, inventory days and repeat purchases from core customers.

03 | Corrugated-packaging performance:Order mix, changeover losses, contribution per square meter, delivery radius and accounts-receivable terms.

04 | Tissue performance:Yield after TM7 reaches stable operation, actual output, customer qualification, sales, repeat purchases and gross margin.

05 | Overseas performance:Phase II commissioning, operating rate, yield, geographic mix of orders, unit cash cost and cash coverage.

Paper Intelligence · Numbers Reveal the Fundamentals

Jingxing’s strength does not reside in any single sheet of paper, but in its ability to direct one recycled fiber into more products and markets.

The system will be proven not when assets exist across all four stages—pulp, paper, boxes and use—but when each stage delivers reliably and ultimately translates into gross profit, cash generation and repeat business. How far a recycled fiber can travel depends on whether every processing step adds verifiable value for customers.