Ilim Group increases its deliveries to China’s southwestern regions, which have been its priority area. By 2025, Ilim Group’s share of paperboard deliveries to southwest PRC will triple from 5 percent to 16 percent, or an additional 100 thousand tons of finished products.
The increase in supplies will make the company a key player in the pulp and paper market in southwest China. Supply volumes will also be increased by products from Ilim Group’s new paper mill (the KLB Mill) in Ust-Ilimsk. Production capacity will be 600 thousand tons of KLB per year, and today Ilim continues to implement its go-to-market strategy.
Following the strategy of introducing KLB mill products to the market, Ilim Group, in cooperation with Chengdu Peibaobo Paper Co. organized a conference for existing and potential partners in Kunming, Yunnan Province. The event was attended by buyers and consumers of paperboard to be used for packaging agricultural products, flowers, tobacco products and beverages. The Yunnan Packaging Association and logistics companies were also among the participants at the event.
Chengdu Peibaobo Paper Co. is one of Ilim Group’s partners in the People’s Republic of China. The company is a large packaging manufacturer and service operator in China. In cooperation with the Chinese company, Ilim also plans to enter the Lao market and supply packaging materials to the FMCG market.
“We will deepen our cooperation with Chengdu Peibaobo Paper Co. seeking to provide customized services to consumers in southwest China, improve logistics routes and increase efficiency under the Belt and Road initiative,” comments Alexander Lykhin, vice president of Ilim Group and head of JSC Ilim Group’s representative office in Asia. “In addition to this, we are working on deliveries to Southeast Asia via the China-Laos rail route.”
“The potential area of cooperation between Chengdu Peibaobo Paper Co. and Ilim Group is to make centralized purchasing, achieve competitive pricing and reduce logistics expenses through joint supply volumes,” says Wang Xiaoju, president of Chengdu Peibaobo Paper Co.