Paper Stock Markets in a State of Flux

(The following is a brief excerpt from the BIR's Quarterly Recycled Paper Report. Members may access the full report by clicking on the following link -- BIR Paper Report)

Czech Republic

Unsatisfactory price and sales conditions persisted during the summer. Merchants’ stocks increased and, as a consequence, collection activities slowed. This low domestic demand was one of the reasons behind increased interest in export business, particularly to Germany and Austria.

Finland

Compared to the first seven months of 2002, consumption of recovered paper dropped by 2 percent to 330 000 metric tons in January-July this year. Downtime was taken by some mills due to a lack of orders and technical problems, thereby weakening demand for recovered paper. The newsprint and coreboard industries have been under particular pressure whereas white tissue mills have been running well.

France

According to the paper industry, order books thinned during the third quarter and downtime was taken as a result. At the same time, there was a reduction in recovered paper collections and prices remained steady.

Germany

The paper industry requested that prices remained unchanged in September but, owing to overall market conditions and the availability of higher prices on the export front, no significant deals were concluded at these levels. This led to an agreement to raise September prices by Euro 10-15 per metric ton for lower grades.