General

With regard to international trade exports, on October 6, the EU approved the implementation of the eighth round of sanctions against Russia, including the prohibition of Russian oil exceeding the price ceiling from being transported to third parties by sea, and the prohibition of providing information technology, engineering and legal services to Russian companies.

As the global shipping service market is monopolized by the European Union, the United Kingdom and other western countries, once the oil price in Russia exceeds the upper limit set by the European Union, Russian oil sellers may be difficult to find insurance providers willing to guarantee shipping.

The statement said: "This package of measures has expanded the scope of no longer providing services to the Russian government and legal entities established in Russia: the scope of the ban now includes information technology consulting, legal consulting, construction and engineering services."

New restrictions include prohibitions on:

▪ It is prohibited to provide legal, IT and engineering services to Russian companies;

▪ It is prohibited to transport and sell Russian oil to a third country at a price higher than the established upper limit;

▪ It is prohibited to import steel, paper, chemical plastics and cigarettes.

It is noteworthy that pulp and paper are also included in the new list of restricted imports. If Russian pulp and paper cannot be exported to other European countries, then China is undoubtedly the largest alternative market.

In the past six months, the paper supply gap in Europe has gradually emerged. Previously, Smurfit Kappa, Europe's leading corrugated packaging giant, announced that it would reduce production by about 30000 to 50000 tons in August. In addition, the price of energy and other raw materials caused by it soared, which affected the production costs of European pulp and paper manufacturers. The German Paper Association pointed out that by this winter, the shortage of natural gas may seriously affect German paper production, or even cause a complete shutdown.

Since this year, the export volume of China's paper products in international trade has soared. In May, the export business of international trade in paper making and paper products showed a blowout growth. Statistics showed that the export delivery value of international trade in paper making and paper products industry was 6.64 billion yuan, a significant year-on-year growth of 51.9%, breaking the 6 billion mark for the first time in history, a new record high; The accumulative export delivery value of international trade was 27.86 billion, up 30.8% year on year. According to the statistics of industry websites, from January to July 2022, the cumulative export volume of China's machine-made paper and paperboard was 3.85 million tons, an increase of 85.13% compared with 2.0796 million tons in the same period last year.