Slowdown In the Economy: Is It Really Affecting the Paper Mills?

Slowdown In the Economy: Is It Really Affecting the Paper Mills? 

Ghaziabad | 1st January 2020 | The Pulp and Paper Times: 

The Paper industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the Indian economy. According to various studies, the Paper industry is growing 7 to 8 percent annually but due to the slowdown in the Indian economy, the paper industry is claimed to have registered sluggish growth in demand, rising paper imports creating more dilemma for the paper sector. Although, Industry chamber FICCI's quarterly survey on the paper industry shows the different picture altogether. Paper mills are running on 95 percent capacity utilization as per the survey. The Pulp and Paper Times takes a sneak interview of the Paper industry's stalwarts on the slowdown. Paper industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the Indian economy. According to various studies, the Paper industry is growing 7 to 8 percent annually but due to the slowdown in the Indian economy, the paper industry is claimed to have registered sluggish growth in demand, rising paper imports creating more dilemma for the paper sector. Although, Industry chamber FICCI's quarterly survey on the paper industry shows the different picture altogether. Paper mills are running on 95 percent capacity utilization as per the survey. The Pulp and Paper Times takes a sneak interview of the Paper industry's stalwarts on the slowdown.

“I feel that it just been a one month time to shift from newsprint to writing printing paper, obviously we suffered huge losses on newsprint, but initial success of Writing and Printing Paper's quality; I defer from the slowdown after this nice paperex exhibition. We have such huge inquiries for our quality of the paper. So in the coming time, we are at the lowest level of pricing also and in future pricing are going to improve, so the Slowdown will not impact,” 

Siddharth G. Chowdhary, 

Whole Time Director, 

Shree Rama Newsprint Limited

“Slowdown is the part of the economic cycle; you can't expect the economy to grow forever. So it is sort of a speed breaker and it will go away. We don't see the slowdown as a deterrent to investment, rather we get motivated with slowdown and we find the right options and combination to look forward. We don't go by slowdown; these are for small-time period like six months or a year. Indian economy is growing and demand for paper is also growing, we have to cater to the growing demand. Today, we are hardly at 25 million tonnes and we are expected to touch 30 million tonnes in the next three year times,” 

– Pawan Agarwal, 

Managing Director, 

Naini Group.

“You can say it slow down but I think in Trident we see it as an opportunity because it is a time when we can assess how the global Industry is operating and can come to the level of them. There is no point or opportunity that you can continue with these sorts of practices, so you have to utilize economy of scale, you have to upgrade the technology, and also you have to find innovative ways with using digital platforms. The world is changing, the things can not be the same as they were earlier. We feel this slowdown is not going to impact us because we are always ready for change,” - 

Navneet Jindal, 

CEO – Sales & Marketing 

(Paper & Chemicals), 

Trident Ltd.

“Defiantly Bangladesh also worse affected by the slowdown. Eighty paper mills have been closed down. Only 25 paper mills are working out of 105 mills. Those working except 5 to 6 paper mills are doing well and rest of working at 50 to 60 percent capacity. The slowdown phenomenon is everywhere. We are expecting a recovery from February onwards,”  

Mustafizur Rahman, 

Dy. Managing Director, 

Bashundhara Group, Bangladesh.

“In coming time, Packaging Industry has a very bright future. There will be a good requirement for packaging in most of the products. There is a slightly slowdown in the economy due to the slump in the automobile industry. All the spare parts related to automobiles need packaging and boxes. I think slowdown will not remain forever. We hope, this slowdown will be over in the next six months. Government is also taking initiative on the policy level to revive the economy,” 

Ashok Bansal, 

Managing Director, 

Nikita Papers Limited.

“As industry claims, a slowdown is there, we are doing quite well in the paper sector. You can see in the market that we are commanding a good price and have state-of-art quality. We are not out of the slowdown, it has affected us also but we at Kuantum is doing better than the competition,” 

Sanjay Khosla, 

Vice President- Marketing, 

Kuantum Papers Limited

Web Title: Slowdown In the Economy Is It Really Affecting the Paper Mills?