Liwen papermaking(02314-HK) announced that the profit attributable to shareholders for the first six months ended June 30, 2017 was 2.194 billion yuan, up 53.35% from a year earlier. Earnings per share are 48.42 cents. The interim interest rate was 17 cents, up 54.55% from the same period last year.

The Group's total sales volume for the six months ended June 30, 2017 was 2.77 million tons, with a total revenue of HK $11.44 billion. Its half-year net profit rose sharply by 53% to HK $2.19 billion over the same period last year, with a net profit of HK $792 per tonne. The gross profit was 3.079 billion yuan, up 58.33% year-on-year.

Thanks to the active closure of production capacity by the mainland government and the successive introduction of environmental protection policies, the reduction of excess capacity in the industry, coupled with the pick-up in demand in the paper industry, has greatly improved the supply and demand situation. The sales volume and prices of the Group's products have increased, while the marginal profit has also recorded an ideal increase.

At present, the group has an annual output of 465000 tons of toilet paper, including 8 sets of Chongqing Industrial Park with an annual output of 355000 tons and 2 sets of Jiangxi Industrial Park with an annual output of 110000 tons. With the increase in production and the Group's own wood pulp production equipment in Chongqing, this benefit can be used to further reduce the cost of manufacturing toilet paper products. Chongqing Industrial Park and Guangdong Hongmei Plant have a total annual output of 220000 tons, and two new toilet paper production lines with an annual output of 110000 tons are planned to be built in Chongqing Industrial Park, which are expected to be put into production by the end of this year and the middle of next year respectively. After it is put into production, the output of toilet paper of the Group will reach 795000 tons. In the future, the toilet paper business will make a significant contribution to the Group and become another new growth bright spot.

In addition to toilet paper business, the Group has also entered the overseas packaging paper market and invested in the construction of paper mills abroad to expand the Southeast Asian market. The paper machine project in Houjiang, Vietnam, that is, the equivalent of 400000 tons of production capacity, has been put into production during the period. In view of the huge overseas packaging paper market, the Group does not rule out devoting more resources to this business. At the same time, the PM21 paper machine with an annual production capacity of about 400000 tons in Jiangxi plant is also under construction and is scheduled to be put into production in September this year. After full production, the annual production capacity of the Group's packaging paper will exceed 6 million tons.