Bashundhara Paper Mills : Developing presence in Tissue Market, plans to establish conversion units in India

Bashundhara Paper Mills: Developing a presence in Tissue Market, plans to establish conversion units in India

Dhaka | 11 March 2020 | The Pulp and Paper Times:

The leading paper and paper manufacturing company of Bangladesh, Bashundhara Paper Mills Ltd. (BPML) has engaged all its business efforts to develop its presence in the markets, particularly in the tissue and paper sector where inherent growth and cost benefits are most apparent. In its paper and tissue businesses, the company sees bigger opportunities to develop by leveraging the competencies in both mature and emerging markets. Sustainable development is integral to the success of the business and its ability to create value.

“BPML has executed its plan to raise its capacity by setting up of imported new plants and machinery in factory premises and engaged its efforts to expand its business horizon. The commercial production of the new unit started in February 2019. During this year the company has further introduced some new products which are expected to create good demands in the local market.

We are also looking for increasing of our export revenues. We hope that by producing quality products use we could hold and acquire more local market shares and export more as well,” Mr. Safwan Sobhan said in the recently released BPML’s annual report for FY 18-19.

“Before the financial under review, the production capacity of BPML was 1,13,050 MT/Year when the factory run with approximately 80% of its capacity. As a result, we usually got 80-85% of our total requirement and due to shortage of production capacity, we cannot meet the market demand. Thus short supply becomes a common phenomenon in previous years.

Meanwhile, BPML has imported modern machinery and equipment and installed those in the factories of the company. The import of the European Brand-New Automated Tissue machinery and equipment added capacity by 30,000 MT/Year in production of different grades of tissue including high-quality facial wipes, toilet paper, and napkins, and add diversities in the product portfolio. After successful trial production, commercial production had started in February 2019. It was aimed that the company is able to increase its market share after full utilization of this new machinery and equipment” report says.

The process to establish and start a converting unit having 500MT production capacity in Kolkata, India, and another converting unit with more 500 MT production capacities at Shiliguri, India are underway although jumbo rolls of papers for this converting unit is planned to be sent from our local factory.

“In recent years there have been various developments in our country including improvements of livelihood, the standard of living of the people, GDP growth, fast urbanization etc. It created positive impact in the paper sector as well. If the trend continues we believe the demand for paper and paper products to cross 3200 MT within a short time. We have taken initiatives to focus on rural markets of Bangladesh wherein most of the people live. We have undertaken nationwide awareness development programs through discussion sessions, meetings, and seminars on regular intervals and included thousands of Imams, religious personalities, leaders, socially recognized and respected persons in such programs. We observed that awareness for using tissue products in the rural people is developing gradually and people in the rural and urban areas have started using more tissue products nowadays,

BPML has continued to export of its products, although in a lesser volume, in various countries including India, China, England, Australia, Bahrain, UAE, etc. We have been focusing on domestic markets rather than export markets in considering lower margins from exports. We have also engaged our efforts for the expansion of our export markets and reaching our products to more and more foreign countries. And our expert sales teams are working hard in implementing the plan of further business expansion outside of the country” report said. 

Meanwhile, BPML has seen around 60 percent significant dip in profit from FY 17-18. The company exported its products to 23 countries on 58 percent capacity utilization during 18-19. Total revenue for fy 18-19 stood at INR 958 Cr.

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