A surprise batch of paper import quota has been issued by the Chinese Government.
In an announcement made yesterday, 94,750 tonnes of quota was issued.
This was significantly lower than September’s 705,850 tonnes of quota however.
With China expected to ban imports of all paper grades from the beginning of 2020, it is highly unlikely that this batch of paper import quota will be able to be used by UK and European exporters. It could still be possibly used by US West Coast shippers, but is most likely to be allocated to Japanese and other more local imports.
So far this year, China has announced a total of 7.1 million tonnes of paper import quota compared to 10.9 million tonnes in the same period up to October 2019.