Dalian, China
www.ruiguangnonwoven.com
2024 Nonwovens Sales: $187 million

Key Personnel
Yuan Ming Gu, owner; Zuwei Gu, CEO; Jingxian Cui, CFO

Plants
Dalian, China

Processes
Spunbond, spunlace, meltblown, airlaid

Major Markets
Hygiene, medical, automotive, household, construction, industrial, personal care

For Dalian Ruiguang Nonwovens, sales continued to be affected by price competition which impacted markets including spunlaced nonwovens and flushable materials, as well as lessened consumer demand. This also negatively affected profit margins.

For the past 30 years, Ruiguang has always paid great attention to the positioning of product differentiation from the aspects of investment and research and development, avoiding simple capacity replication investment, constantly optimizing internal management methodology to reduce costs and improve product competitiveness.

Recent milestones from Ruiguang include the development of a high-strength IWSFG-certified flushable material which attracted significant customer attention as well as a flushable nonwoven material able to successfully pass toilet paper standard JIS P4501. This was made from carded pulp combining 50% pulp with the combination of lyocell and offers 100% biodegradability, the company says. Additionally, this year Ruiguang has developed several new strong and linting control industrial wipes.

Combining wetlaid and airlaid pulp with spunlace has allowed Ruiguang to expand its sustainable products into many areas of the disposable wipes markets.

Key Personnel: Yuan Ming Gu, owner; Zuwei Gu, CEO; Jingxian Cui, CFO
Plants: Dalian, China
Processes: Spunbond, spunlace, meltblown, airlaid
Major Markets: Hygiene, medical, automotive, household, construction, industrial, personal care

Sales decreased slightly at Dalian Ruiguang in 2023 to $187 million, due largely to price competition which impacted markets including spunlaced nonwovens and flushable materials, as well as lessened consumer demand. This also negatively impacted profit margins.

“China’s nonwovens industry faces the problems of overcapacity, fierce homogenization competition and rising energy prices,” the company reports. “In the past 30 years, Ruiguang has always paid great attention to the positioning of product differentiation from the aspects of investment and research and development, avoiding simple capacity replication investment, constantly optimizing internal management methodology to reduce costs and improve product competitiveness.”

Recent milestones from Ruiguang include the development of a high-strength IWSFG-certified flushable material which attracted significant customer attention as well as a flushable nonwoven material able to successfully pass toilet paper standard JIS P4501. This was made from carded pulp combining 50% pulp with the combination of lyocell and offers 100% biodegradability, the company says. Additionally, this year, Ruiguang has developed several new strong and linting control industrial wipes.

Combining wetlaid and airlaid pulp with spunlace has allowed Ruiguang to expand its sustainable products into many areas of the disposable wipes markets.

Plants: Dalian, China
Processes: Spunbond, spunlace, meltblown, airlaid
Major Markets: Hygiene, medical, automotive, household, construction, industrial, personal care

Sales decreased to $189 million in 2022 at Dalian Ruiguang, due to an overcapacity situation in China and globally, which resulted in increased competition and pricing challenges as well as lack of consumer demand.

To defend itself against this competition, Dalian Ruiguang has focused on improving its research and development capabilities and the developing of green, biodegradable products, including airlaid wood pulp, composite spunlace, wetlaid pulp composite spunlace products. By using the maximum application of pulp in nonwoven products, Ruiguang has been able to offer customers more economical biodegradable product solutions.

The company’s latest investment, a wetlaid composite line, combines more than 50% of wood pulp with biodegradable manmade fibers such as viscose and lyocell. The cost advantage of wood pulp makes the raw material cost of the final products more advantageous than that of viscose and lyocell spunlaced products. Additionally, the product’s and the cleaning ability and strength is improved.

Ruiguang has always been committed to adopting and innovating nonwovens technology including carded, wetlaid, airlaid, filament spinning and other technologies. Ruiguang will continue to invest and improve the competitiveness of the enterprise’s products if there are new nonwovens technology developed in the future. While wetlace has received significant attention in recent years, spunlace and carded nonwovens continue to be viable growth areas for the company.

Plants: Dalian, China
Processes: Spunbond, spunlace, meltblown, airlaid
Major Markets: Hygiene, medical, automotive, household, construction, industrial, personal care

Nonwovens sales at Dalian Ruiguang Nonwoven Group continue to benefit from the company’s ambitious investment strategy. In recent years, the company has added three new lines—one spunbond and two spunlaced—bringing an additional 17,000 tons of capacity to the group’s output. This investment was well timed and has served spikes in demand for spunlace disinfectant wipes, meltblown, spunbond and SF medical protective apparel.

In addition to these three lines, in 2020 Ruiguang added one N99 meltblown line and a wetlaid pulp composite spunlace production line to meet demand in the filtration and flushable wipes markets, respectively.

The new meltblown line, which was imported from Germany, will allow more sophisticated N99 materials for air and filtration applications unlike its existing line which was not as sophisticated.

Meanwhile, Ruiguang’s new fully degradable pulp wetlaid composite spunlace production line adopts European imported production lines and combines nonwoven carding technology with wet-laid paper technology. Products made on this line contain more than 50% wood pulp content so that the product can be completely degraded at a more reasonable cost. The design concept of environmental protection and green products has been adopted. After European legislation concerning single use plastics—including some varieties of wipes—various countries have successively introduced similar policies for disposable products.

Spunlace nonwovens, one of Ruiguang’s main product areas, has seen significant growth in China and globally because the Covid-19 epidemic has increased peoples’ cleaning habits in public spaces. This led to an increase in the use of disinfectant wipes. Additionally, younger consumers are more likely to use products like toilet wipes, kitchen wipes and floor wipes, which have grown significantly.

Currently, Ruiguang has just one manufacturing site in Dalian, China, where all of its operations are concentrated. This facility will contain 21 production lines once the most recently announced investments are completed and it will serve customers all over the world. However, investing in foreign countries to help overcome transportation challenges and build Ruiguang into an enterprise with an international vision and operations is still the ultimate goal of the company, according to executives.

Plants: Dalian, China
Processes: Spunbond, spunlace, meltblown, airlaid
Major Markets: Hygiene, medical, automotive, household, construction, industrial, personal care

Nonwovens sales at Dalian Ruiguang Nonwoven Group jumped to $320 million following investment in three new lines—one spunbond and two spunlaced—adding an additional 17,000 tons of capacity annually as well as demand spikes for spunlace disinfectant wipes, meltblown, spunbond and SF medical protective apparel. All of the company’s spunlace and spunmelt lines operated at full capacity in 2020.

In addition to these three lines, in 2020 Ruiguang added one N99 meltblown line and a wetlaid pulp composite spunlace production line to meet demand in the filtration and flushable wipes markets, respectively.

The new meltblown line, which was imported from Germany, will allow more sophisticated N99 materials for air and filtration applications unlike its existing line which was not as sophisticated.

Meanwhile, Ruiguang’s new fully degradable pulp wetlaid composite spunlace production line adopts European imported production lines and combines nonwoven carding technology with wet-laid paper technology. Products made on this line contain more than 50% wood pulp content so that the product can be completely degraded at a more reasonable cost. The design concept of environmental protection and green products has been adopted. After European legislation concerning single use plastics—including some varieties of wipes—various countries have successively introduced similar policies for disposable products.

Spunlace nonwovens, one of Ruiguang’s main product areas, has seen significant growth in China and globally because the Covid-19 epidemic has increased peoples’ cleaning habits in public spaces. This led to an increase in the use of disinfectant wipes. Additionally, younger consumers are more likely to use products like toilet wipes, kitchen wipes and floor wipes, which have grown significantly.

However, excessive investment globally has created an oversupply situation as even heightened growth cannot consume all of the new nonwovens being added. Even in China, with demand growing quickly, investment is outpacing this demand. This will force manufacturers to develop new application areas, carry out equipment transformation, and develop new technologies, according to executives. The nonwoven industry in China has reached a stage of re-integration.

Currently, Ruiguang has just one manufacturing site in Dalian, China where all of its operations are concentrated. This facility will contain 21 production lines once the most recently announced investments are completed and it will serve customers all over the world. However, the company would like to eventually invest in foreign countries to help overcome transportation challenges and build Ruiguang into an enterprise with an international vision, and international operations is still the goal, according to the company.

Plants: Dalian, China
Processes: Spunbond, spunlace, meltblown, airlaid
Major Markets: Hygiene, medical, automotive, household, construction, industrial, personal care

Continued growth in several markets as well as the addition of a new high-speed spunlace line meant solid growth for Dalian Ruiguang. However, the impact of political factors like the U.S./China trade war is expected to influence results going forward. In response, Dalian Ruiguang will restructure its product portfolio, target markets and sales policies in a timely manner.

Based in Dalian, China, Dalian Ruiguang Group operates 16 nonwoven production lines, including two more semicrosslapped spunlace production lines and one spunbond nonwoven production line added in 2019. These new investments added 20,000 tons to the company’s existing capacity bringing its total to 100,000 tons.

The new spunlace line has the ability to control the products’ MD/CD ratio at about 2:1 or even less, which greatly increases the product strength, especially the CD strength.

On the basis of parallel laying spunlace products, semicrosslapped products enrich product varieties and develop more application areas, such as cotton soft towels, facial masks and medical disinfection wipes. The newly added spunbond nonwoven production line is the basis of the Ruiguang Rubik’s Cube R&D module, using multiple technologies to create new value-added products.

Although the international environment is complex and changeable, the domestic market in China for nonwoven materials has maintained stable development. In the past five years, the nonwoven material domestic marketshare has remained at around 85%, and the demand for wipes continues to grow across several markets.

Plants: Dalian, China
Processes: Spunbond, spunlace, meltblown, airlaid
Major Markets: Hygiene, medical, automotive, household, construction, industrial, personal care

Sales increased about 20% to reach $175 million at Dalian Ruiguang thanks to the addition of a new carded spunlace line which began operation in early 2018. While U.S. tariffs had some impact on sales, the company was able to compensate for these losses by developing other markets.

According to executives, growth is expected to continue thanks to the addition of three new production lines in China—two spunlace and one spunbond—which will bring the company’s total line count to 13 and its capacity to 80,000 tons (compared to 60,000 tons before the investment) by the end of 2019.

While supply has significantly outpaced demand in China, due partly to the U.S. tariff impact, Dalian Ruiguang has compensated for this shortcoming by developing new markets. One increasingly strong market in China is dry tissue, made from cotton and through crosslapped technology as well as flushable technology. Both of these technology types are posed to see significant growth due to the no plastic policy in Europe which will boost demand for 100% biodegradable products.

Plants: Dalian, China
Processes: Spunbond, spunlace, meltblown, airlaid
Major Markets: Hygiene, medical, automotive, household, construction, industrial, personal care

Sales at China’s Dalian Ruiguang continued to be strong this year thanks to the continued contribution of a new wetlaid wipes line targeting the dispersible wipes market. The new line features improvements in flushable technology. Material made on the line disperses significantly more quickly than the requirements of the third edition of INDA’s flushability guidelines, with 90% of materials passing through a mesh screen after four to eight minutes in the sloshbox test.

In addition to dispersible products, the wetlaid production line can offer different composite products, such as Genesis (combining spunbond and pulp), which is widely used for medical sterilization applications.

Besides the wetlaid line, Ruiguang operates 10 production lines with technologies including spunbond, meltblown and spunlace. Together these lines, all located in China, can make 60,000 tons of nonwovens per year.

In 2017, Ruiguang added a new carded spunlace line, which added 15,000 tons to the company’s capacity.

Throughout its 27-year history, most of the Ruiguang’s products targeted personal care, medical care and household applications but the company also develops meltblown nonwovens for mask air filtration material, moist toilet tissue, adult wet wipes and high bulk baby wipes. In the medical area, the company can offer  medical gauze, sterilization wet wipes, and in the household market, the company participates in the kitchen wipe and floor wipe segments.

Plants: Dalian, China
Processes: Spunbond, spunlace, meltblown, airlaid
Major Markets: Hygiene, medical, automotive, household, construction, industrial, personal care

Sales at China’s Dalian Ruiguang were $143 million last year thanks to the startup of a new wetlaid wipes line targeting the dispersible wipes market. The new line features improvements on flushable technology. Material made on the line disperses significantly more quickly than the requirements of the third edition of INDA’s flushability guidelines, with 90% of materials passing through a mesh screen after four to eight minutes in the sloshbox test.

There are a lot of improvements to be done in flushable technology.

“We shall put more efforts to supplying various customers with different grades of dispersible products with different dispersability/wet strength combinations,” says company president Yuanming Gu.

In addition to dispersible products, the wetlaid production line can offer different composite products, such as a Genesis (combining spunbond and pulp), which is widely used for medical sterilization applications.

Besides the wetlaid line, Ruiguang operates 10 production lines with technologies including spunbond, meltblown and spunlace. Together these lines, all located in China, can make 60,000 tons of nonwovens per year.

In early 2017, Ruiguang began construction on a new carded spunlace line, which should be complete by the end of the year. This will add 15,000 tons to the company’s capacity.

Throughout its 27-year history, most of the Ruiguang’s products targeted personal care, medical care and household applications but the company also develops meltblown nonwovens for mask air filtration material, moist toilet tissue, adult wet wipes and high bulk baby wipes. In the medical area, the company can offer  medical gauze, sterilization wet wipes, and in the household market, the company participates in the kitchen wipe and floor wipe segments.

“Innovation is the core value of the company, we do not really sell a product, we supply the solution and develop the market together with our customer,” Gu says. “And, all the new investments are full of advanced technology to ensure the stable quality and high capacity; we never simply copy the production capacity among different production lines. The strategy of high end market competition and product differentiation helps maintain Ruiguang’s leadership position in China.”

Plants: Dalian, China
Processes: Spunbond, spunlace, meltblown, airlaid
Major Markets: Hygiene, medical, automotive, household, construction, industrial, personal care.

In 2014, Dalian Ruiguang’s sales amounted to $169 million, a slight increase compared to $140 million in 2013. Strategic measures taken by Dalian Ruiguang have helped the company’s performance.

Last year, the company expanded its existing production capacities through a production line renovation, which enabled the company to broaden its product portfolio and improve product quality by developing new materials. Examples include its pulp-based multi-layer laminated nonwovens that exhibit superior water retention properties, and its high strength composite jacquard nonwovens that offer rich patterns and good transverse strength. Also in 2014, Dalian Ruiguang’s flushable nonwovens line began production. Materials from this new line meet EDANA’s standard for flushable products.

Additionally, the construction phase of its 70,000-square-meter Ruiguang Industry Park is complete. The advanced nonwovens production lines installed there will allow Ruiguang to establish itself as a strong modern nonwovens industry player with a wide product portfolio and some of the most advanced technologies.

Some challenges facing Dalian Ruiguang include the continuous increase in production costs, nationwide overcapacity and the lack of innovation in the industry. With the economic slowdown in China, the whole country is under pressure to adjust its industrial structure. Furthermore, the fluctuation of its currency and key factors of production, including energy and labor costs, are rising. Dalian Ruiguang will cooperate with consulting firms to optimize its organizational structures.

On the technical side, the company will focus on the development of new nonwovens technologies and will offer customers more options in terms of product functionality, diversity and environmental friendly products

Plants: Dalian, China
Processes: Spunbond, spunlace, meltblown, airlaid
ISO Status: ISO9001; ISO14001
Brands: Ruiguang
Major Markets: Hygiene, automotive, medical, air filtration and personal care

In 2013 Dalian Ruiguang took many positive steps and achieved sound performance, recording revenue of $176 million. More than 50% of its products are exported to Europe, the U.S., Japan and Korea.

During the year, the company invested in a flushable and dispersible spunlace production line from Andritz, which will enable Dalian Ruiguang to produce 15,000 tons per year when scheduled production commences in March 2015 and will be in accordance with EDANA’s third edition flushability guidelines.

Dalian Ruiguang also started construction of a 130,000 square meter industrial park in 2014. The previously mentioned production line also marks the beginning of the project, as the company is aiming to build up its unique and synergistic strength with customized, multi-processes, and functionality-based products via the application of its spunlance, spunbond, meltblown and airlaid lines as well as other innovative technologies.

The company reported investment of an additional $3.25 million on retrofitting its existing spunlace production line with needle cloth adjustment and equipment configuration change. After the project is completed in March 2014, the production line will produce a wide range of unit weighted nonwovens with improved quality and productivity, to meet special needs in various segments.

The company also commercialized CPC (carded web+airlaid pulp+carded web) nonwovens. With 100% viscose applied in the two carded web layers, the CPC nonwovens feature textile feeling, and is 100% degradable, which offers wipe producers an alternative solution beside existing 100% viscose or Tencel-based nonwovens with more reasonable cost.

Moving forward Dalian Ruiguang says it is focused on developing differentiated, functional and green products, including flushable, degradable consumer products, which have already generated positive response in the market. The company is trying to deliver soft, full feel, safe and degradable wipes and baby diapers to suit the differentiated market needs with high value-added elements incorporated.

As the markets need increases for flushable and degradable wipes and with efforts from government, nonwovens institutions and associations including EDANA and INDA, Dalian Ruiguang is optimistic about its future growth in this sector.

Plants: Dalian, China
Processes: Spunbond, spunlace, meltblown, airlaid ISO Status ISO9001; ISO14001
Brands: Ruiguang
Major Markets: Hygiene, automotive, medical, air filtration and personal care

Dalian Ruiguang Nonwoven Group started business in 1991. After more than 20 years of development, Ruiguang operates four subsidiaries and 11 nonwoven production lines. The firm continues to invest in different nonwovens businesses including spunbond, meltblown, spunlace sections. The group recorded sales volume of $140 million in 2012, and has achieved steady annual growth of more than 10% per year. The company says its meltblown and spunlace product lines are running well in the U.S, Japanese, Korean and Chinese markets.

“Overall, we have done a great job in the 2012 financial year even though we suffered under the weight of market stress in the fourth quarter,” says Yuan Ming Gu, president of Ruiguang Group. “Furthermore, with the RMB exchange rate growing continuously, business, especially the export business, was affected to some degree, but is still running well due to the promotion of new products globally.”

Dalian Ruiguang is investing in a new green, sustainable and innovative hygiene spunlace technology in 2013, which it says will impact the market positively. “The future of spunlace nonwovens for hygiene applications will offer different technical characteristics and excellent performance, in a move to become more green and sustainable due to the different fiber properties,” says Gu.

“We shall supply the new products and joint research service to our customers, offering them great quality with considerate service incentives too,” says Gu. “We will continue to establish strategic partnerships with the same core-valued customers.”

Gu says there is a lot of competition in the Chinese spunlace market due to all of the capacity that has come onstream in 2012 and 2013. “We have to reposition ourselves in the market by improving the innovative nature and quality of our products under these circumstances,” says Gu.

The company operates two in-line carding spunlace production lines with 300m/min production speed that began operations in May 2011, and reached its max throughput last year in 2012. The products have produced very good sales, according to Gu, who says the technology is very good for baby wipes due to the three dimensional structure, high water absorbency rate, more volume and bulky feel. “The performance of company rose over 20% in 2012 due to this investment,” he says.

Regarding the specific nonwoven products, the airlaid SPC product is still unique in Asia, as it has the characteristics of good strength, competitive pricing and reasonable water absorbency. This product is designated by some of Dalian Ruiguang’s customers for special branded products. The airlaiding CPC product offers another possibility to have bulky products, perfect water absorbency effect, versatile fiber structure with a feasible performance module. It offers much more opportunities for the consumer to use green products without any extra cost. The company says it has received very good market feedback in U.S and Korea while sales volume grows steady each year.

The meltblown material for lens wipes, screen wipes and air filtration are very popular. They are made with super fine meltblown fibers with more surface and efficient cleaning, and it has a particular good sales in North America and Japan.

The elastic facial mask and automobile backsheet markets demand special high enlongation spunlace, and Gu says the company develops a special product with not only these properties but also with pretty good tensile strength for this purpose. “With these characteristics, the spunlace can keep the same deforming rate during the composite process material,” says Gu.

The floor wipes market is important to Dalian Ruiguang and here it offers several products including a 100% polyester mesh style, high bulk embossing structure, fishbone style etc. “They achieve perfect static performance, with maximum surface area, and are soft with enough tensile strength,” says Gu. “Over the past three years we have grown our floor wipes business by more than 20%. We see very good market prospects in U.S and Japan, and there are strong signs that the Chinese market has very big potential as well. We are conducting some market promotion accordingly.”

The company has a very healthy development in the last 20 years, Ruiguang shall concentrate on the nonwoven carrier continuously, based on the existing spunbond, meltblown and spunlace technology, we shall develop and invest new technology to create better life for the people.