Writing & Printing paper demand dropped by 60 percent; Naini Papers started Absorbent Kraft production

Writing & Printing Paper demand dropped by 60 percent;  Naini Papers started Absorbent Kraft Paper production

Kashipur | 31st August 2020 | The Pulp and Paper Times: 

COVID 19 pandemic has significantly pushed the demand for writing and printing paper at a very low level. Paper mills are not utilizing their full capacity since March. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic situation, both inward and outward supply chains of the paper industry have been totally disrupted, and are yet to fully recover. There has also been a severe demand compression due to the lockdown and closing down of educational institutions, commercial establishments, and downstream printers, publishers, converters, stationery services among others.

Talking to The Pulp and Paper Times, Naini Group’s Managing Director, Mr. Pawan Aggarwal points out that the “writing and printing segment has been badly hit by COVID 19. The demand has dropped massively and comes down to a 40 percent level, and any revival could be seen only after December 2020 or January 2021.

To avoid the crunch of liquidity and idleness of machines, paper mills in the writing and printing segment have started diversification of its products according to market behaviour.

“Every crisis brings an opportunity. We have to see through it to really understand what kind of opportunity we can make out of it. In my own opinion, the financial year 2021-22 should be the year for the paper industry,” Mr. Agarwal said.

“Yes, we have diversified our operations into Industrial product also and added absorbent kraft in our portfolio. Naini Papers has been manufacturing absorbent kraft paper for the last three months, and we are supplying it commercially to the associate industry. The range of GSM is 100 to 150,” Mr. Aggarwal informed.

“We expect that demand for W&P paper won't drop further below the 40 percent level.” Mr. Aggarwal said.

“Customer behaviour will change the specification of products, so paper mills have to tweak a lot with product development. And this change in products has to be cost-competitive. We have to be very careful in manpower planning and energy consumption in order to become a cost-efficient entity,” Mr. Aggarwal said.

The paper industry is operating under extremely challenging conditions which have been compounded by substantial quantities of paper being imported into the country at significantly lower costs, especially due to the Free Trade Agreements such as India-ASEAN FTA and Indo-Korean CEPA and other trade agreements like Asia Pacific Trade Agreements, which includes China.

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