<B>Domestic Paper Production Down for Year</B>

Production of paper at domestic mills declined 1.4 percent last year, compared to 1999’s figures. According to the American Forest and Paper Association paper production for December 2000 stands at 3.601 million tons, compared to 3.899 million tons the same time the previous year.

The figures for the month brought the total for the year to 45.385 million tons, compared to 1999’s production total of 46.007 million tons.

Individually, tissue and newsprint production both posted positive growth for the year, while printing and writing paper production, as well as packaging and other papers posted disappointing numbers.

Domestic newsprint production reached 7.394 million tons last year, a 3 percent improvement from 1999’s total. For December production reached 634,000 tons, essentially the same from the previous December.

Tissue paper production for December reached 581,000 tons, pushing the full-year total to 6.887 million tons, a slight 0.6 percent improvement.

On the down side, the production of printing and writing paper slipped a sharp 2.3 percent last year to 26.570 million tons.

For December production stood at 2.023 million tons, a steep drop from December 1999’s figure of 2.261 million tons.

Within the P&W sector, uncoated groundwood production dropped 2.3 percent, coated free sheet production dipped 5.5 percent, and uncoated free sheet paper dropped 3 percent.

On the positive side, coated groundwood rose 3.1 percent last year to 4.612 million tons.

The production of other packaging paper and other types of paper declined a sharp 5.5 percent last year to 4.533 million tons, compared to 1999’s figure of 4.796 million tons.