Spurred by the apple industry, Jingning County's paper product packaging sector began its rapid development in 1993. The product range has expanded from its initial focus on agricultural and sideline product packaging to include industrial product packaging, with its sales market gradually broadening to cover five northwestern provinces and regions, as well as Inner Mongolia and Sichuan. Presently, Jingning County has become the largest paper product packaging production and distribution center in Northwest China and has been designated as the "China Paper Product Packaging Industry Base" by the China Packaging Federation.
Recently, a visit to the production workshop of Jingning Xinye Packaging Printing Group revealed automated production lines operating at high speed, emitting a rhythmic hum. Workers were busily and orderly engaged at their respective stations, with processes like slitting, creasing, printing, stitching, and packaging seamlessly connected. Finished cardboard boxes streamed out one after another along the conveyor belts, painting a picture of bustling activity throughout the workshop.
Ma Buchang, the group's deputy general manager, explained, "Xinye Group is a provincial-level leading agricultural industrialization enterprise that was cultivated and expanded based on the development needs of our county's apple industry and the demand to extend the apple industry chain. The company's products fall into two major categories, comprising 26 series and 156 items, with an annual production capacity of 80 million square meters of cardboard boxes." The high-end packaging production line, which commenced operations in July 2022, not only directly provides 12 jobs but also indirectly supports stable employment for 60 people. Furthermore, it effectively addresses the gap in digital intelligent printing within Jingning County and the surrounding areas.
Lü Zhaohuan, the workshop director at Xinye Group Packaging Printing Group, said, "Working at Xinye Group, our monthly wages range from 4,000 to 5,000 yuan. This provides us with a considerable income while allowing us to take care of our families, resolving our concerns as employees."
Not far away, in the workshop of Gansu Hengda Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd., a similarly busy scene of humming machinery and robust production and sales was evident. As an intelligent green packaging enterprise specializing in the research, development, production, and sales of corrugated paperboard, cardboard boxes, and fruit packaging materials, the company currently employs 263 people and produces various types of corrugated paperboard and boxes totaling 110 million square meters annually.
As a core supporting enterprise for the Jingning apple industry cluster, Gansu Hengda Environmental Protection Group Packaging Company currently operates three papermaking production lines. The enterprise actively responds to Gansu Province's strategic deployment of "strengthening industry and strengthening counties," vigorously promoting the deep integration of cardboard box manufacturing and the papermaking industry, and continuously advancing equipment greening upgrades and intelligent transformation. Through a series of transformation and upgrading measures, the company has established a stable production capacity of 400,000 cardboard boxes per day, injecting strong momentum into regional industrial development.
According to statistics, the county is now home to five large-scale cardboard box packaging enterprises. Their combined annual production capacity has reached 350 million square meters, with an output value exceeding 10 billion yuan. Progressing from individual enterprises operating at "full capacity" to the entire industry ensuring "supply security," Jingning's cardboard box industry is steadily advancing towards intelligent, green, and high-end development, providing robust support for the high-quality growth of the regional economy.