Paper cos seeks anti-dumping duty and land for plantations

Despite witnessing healthy growth rate during last decade, Indian paper industry faces huge challenges from dumping of cheap paper products from China and Indonesia and availability of land for pulp wood plantations over next few years.

The paper industry estimated to be in the range of Rs 25,000 crore, which is growing at around 7-8% annually, has asked the government to impose anti-dumping duty in compliance with WTO norms so that growth could be maintained.

It has also asked the government to allow the industry to take up plantation in around 1.2-1.5 million hectare of degraded forestland for meeting the wood demand. “We have been urging for increase of peak rate of basic customs duty along with re-introduction of special additional duty for preventing cheap imports,” ML Pachisia, president, Indian Paper Manufacturers Association (IPMA) and MD, Orient Paper & Industries told FE.

He also stressed that the need for allowing the use of small portion of wasteland for plantation purpose, which would support the government’s afforestation programme. The industry needs mostly eucalyptus and cascurina fibre as raw material.

According to IPMA estimate, due to increase in the consumption, the requirement of wood would grow from 5.2 million tonne at present to 13.2 million tonne by 2020.

“We have been meeting the requirement of wood from 2.2 lakh hectare under the pulp plantation mostly initiated through agro-forestry,mainly from private land owned by small and marginal farmers,” Pachisia said. He said the industry needs around 1.2 hectare of degraded forestland for meeting the rising demand.

With added capacity of approximately 0.8 million tonne during 2007-08 the operating capacity of the industry currently stands at 9.3 million tonne. During current fiscal year, domestic production of paper and paperboard is estimated to be 7.6 million tonne. As per industry estimates, over all paper consumption has now touched 8.86 million tonne.

From 7.5 kg per capita consumption during 2007-08, the domestic consumption of paper is expected to go up to 8.3 kg in 2008-09. While global average per capita consumption is around 45 kg. According to IPMA, due to the global economic meltdown, the Asian paper market has become vulnerable and major players in Indonesia and China are all set to push large quantities of coated and uncoated wood-free grades of paper into the Indian market.