China’s Import backs 50 Indian Newsprint mills on the ‘work’

China’s Import backs 50 Indian Newsprint mills on the ‘work’ 

July, 03, 2018, New Delhi, The Pulp and Paper Times: The advantage of China’s import of paper is pushing Indian newsprint industry back on the track. The domestic demand of newsprint paper could be accomplished in coming one or two years from enhanced capacity. “Due to the china’s import, Indian newsprint market is witnessing more demand of paper; resulted closed paper mills have started their operation again in last one month. We hope that this uptrend of paper production will continue in coming future in a sustainable way” exclusively revealed by Mr. Vijay Kumar, Secretary general of Indian Newsprint Manufacturers’ Association (INMA) in above photo to The Pulp and Paper Times.        

Previously, China used to have zero import of newsprint, but after the country stopped producing its own newsprint citing environment concerns, it has started importing newsprint. So there is an increasing global demand for newsprint,” a source from the newspaper industry said.

According to media reports, since mid-2017, China banned the use of mixed grade waste paper and demand for wood pulp (natural fibre) increased. Major pulp exporters such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Chile diverted pulp to China at a higher price, leading to a rise in price of end product.

“In Newsprint segment out of total 123 paper mills, only 32 mills are operating currently. But now 12 more mills have been added to this number and is expected to go on 50 paper mills in 2 -3 months. India's consumption of newsprint currently is around 2.6 million tonnes, while import of newsprint is around 1.4 million tonnes but over the time, domestic production is expected to increase over imports. Domestic paper mills are becoming more quality conscious for Indian consumer so that they tend to buy Indian newsprint” Mr. kumar explained. 

INMA appreciates GST regime for paper industry but raise certain points that “We are demanding to Government to put Writing & printing and newsprint paper in same tax slab to curb the malpractices. Currently WPP is taxed at 12 percent under GST while Newsprint comes under 5% Tax slab. Common Tax rate slab will remove disparity and ambiguity” Mr. Kumar said.        

This import policy has led to the creation of a parallel industry, and has posed harsh setbacks to the formerly flourishing industry, causing nearly half of the 121 newsprint mills to stop production and the rest to function at 60 percent of their potential capacity, In last 3 to 4 years newsprint was imported at under $500 per million tonnes which is $100 less than both the selling cost within exporting countries and the cost of production in Indian mills.

As per a study “the prospect of newsprint segment primarily depends on its consumption by print media industry. However, imports account for a substantial portion of the consumption. With imported price realisations remaining steady, the share of imported newsprint in the total domestic newsprint consumption increased sharply from 50 per cent during FY13 to approximately 60 per cent during FY17,”  

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