Paper Stock Use Expected to Jump in Asia, Europe

Europe and the Asia/Pacific region would account for almost all of the additional 18 million metric tons  of paper recycling capacity scheduled to come on stream between 2003 and 2007, the BIR Paper Round-Table was told in London by guest speaker and sector expert Esko Uutela, Principal of Germany-based EU Consulting.

Uutela’s speech indicated that North American and Japanese capacity would actually fall over the 2003-2007 period whereas capacities in Europe and the Asia/Pacific region could be expected to leap by more than 5 million metric tons and approaching 12 million metric tons, respectively.

With growth in global recovered paper consumption likely to average 4.3 percent per year this decade, Uutela predicted that the world consumption total would leap from 168 million metric tons last year to more than 220 million metric tons by 2010. Given this spiraling demand, BIR Paper Division President Dominique Maguin of Soulier in France said it was ‘very surprising’ that recovered paper prices were not rising rapidly. ‘Prices are still under pressure from the mills and are not under the direction of our own producers,’ he lamented.

Another major trend identified by Uutela was the UK’s emergence as the leading European exporter of recovered fiber in place of Germany. UK exports were forecast to rise from 1.861 million metric tons in 2003 to close to 2.4 million metric tons this year. “They could be 3 million metric tons or even more by 2010 because collection and domestic recovery are growing very rapidly,” he indicated.