The 1st China International Recycled Fiber Conference opened on Thursday in Beijing.

The two-day conference will explore issues facing the recovered-paper industry in China and offer an opportunity to discuss ways to make the industry more healthy and sustainable.

The event, organized by the international forestry industry information provider RISI, has brought together some 400 participants, including members of the China Resources Recycling Association, Chinese government officials, global industry experts, associations and material providers from developed countries and domestic recovered-paper collectors and producers.

The conference is believed to be one of the most prominent international events in the recycled paper industry to be ever held in China.

China's recovered paper market has seen a rapid expansion in recent years. Its recovered paper consumption was 7.6 million tons in 1994, before jumping to 71 million tons in 2011.

The global demand for recovered paper has increased by around 70 million tons, or about 45 percent, in the past 10 years. Asian demand has been the driver of the majority of this growth.

China alone registered a 260 percent increase in recovered-paper demand, fuelled by its fast-increasing demand for paper and board, especially for recycled paper.

"But China's recovered-paper industry is still in an early stage," Jiang Xingsan, president of China Resource Recycling Association, said in his keynote speech to the conference.

"And no industry standards, no industry threshold, low-level competition and a lack of market regulation are problems that need to be dealt with in the future."

Over the next five years, the global demand for recovered paper will continue to increase quickly in fiber-poor regions, such as China and India, experts predict.

Questions about how China will be able to generate enough recovered paper to meet its expanding demand and about the regulation of the recovered-paper industry will be among the main topics discussed at the conference.

An association for the domestic recovered paper industry is expected to be formed on the closing day of the conference.