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Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) - China is
poised to become the world's largest paper producer. But this ambition
is causing serious deforestation in the country and Southeast Asia.
Modern paper production in China only
developed throughout the last decade. Nick Harambasic, manager of the
American Penford Products said: "At first, China had many small
factories of low quality, which produced for the domestic market. In the
nineties, it started installing paper mills of international standard.
The growth has been phenomenal." The expert predicted that China
would become the world's largest producer of paper, a place now occupied
by the United States.
Harambasic said that in the last 10
years, around 14 large paper factories were set up every year, each
costing between 250 and 500 million US dollars and with a productive
capacity of more than 100 million tons per year.
Meanwhile, the Asia Pulp and Paper (APP),
a company of the Sino-Indonesian family Widjaya, has become the leading
company in the sector. "Before 1995, the APP was of relatively
modest size. Now it produces enough paper to be able to control global
prices." Alex Goh, head of the firm's finance department, said:
"The APP exports final products to 65 countries." The APP is
considered the seventh largest producer of paper; the first six are
American companies (USA and Canada) as well as Finnish. In China,
production was higher than 4.5 million tons of paper, continued Goh. An
increase in production over the next two years is foreseen in the
province of Hainan, to the tune of another 1.6 million tons of paper.
The firm is based in Singapore and is quoted on the New York Stock
Exchange, but in recent years, it has been accused of not having paid
debts amounting to 14 billion US dollars.
In 2005, the firm was accused of logging
entire forests without permission, with the complicity of the local
government, in Simao region in Yunnan province. An inquiry has been set
up. "We believe both APP and the local government are responsible
for the violation," Wang Zhuxong, deputy director of the
administration's Forest Resources Management Department. "No
violator will escape punishment when this investigation is
finished."
Environment organisations and student
groups organised protests against APP in front of large shopping centres
in six major cities (including Bejing and Guangzhou), calling on people
to boycott their products.
China's heavy production has led to
scarcity of wood and wood pulp in the country, with environmental
problems caused by excessive deforestation. Between 1997 and 2003,
importation of timber to China increased by 12.6 million cubic metres,
according to Graeme Lang and Cathy Chan Hiu-wan of the Hong Kong
University, while paper and pulp rose from an equivalent of 27.6 million
cubic metres of wood to 66.5 million cubic metres. Suppliers are from
Southeast Asian states and above all from Russia and Indonesia.
The World Wildlife Found (WWF) fears all
this is harmful for the Southeast Asian forests, as well as those in
Russia and South America. The organisation said in a report: "China
imports from many states where forest controls are scarce." For
example, [the income of] importation from Myanmar, one of the main
suppliers, goes towards increasing funding for the military costs of the
Junta as well as those of revolutionary groups, without any effective
monitoring of outcomes on the environment."
This is how things were in Indonesia,
which in the nineties lost two million hectares of forest thanks to
logging undertaken by "both abusive and authorised operators".
Chinese importation from Indonesia of wood and derived products amounted
to more than 2.6 million cubic metres in 2002, which was the amount
declared by Jakarta for exports. The report concluded that this could be
explained only by carelessness or worse, by illegal activities.
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