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ITALIAN EXCELLENCE IN PACKING PAPER
Rome (Ign) - Whether glossy, polyethylene-based, corrugated or tissue paper, they represent an extremely dynamic sector which, thanks to the variety and quality of its products, competes on an international level in an extremely competitive market, dominated by the traditional large German companies and threatened by aggressive Asian competition. These are packing papers for commercial and industrial use. According to figures published by Assocarta, the Association which brings together companies in the sector (www.assocarta.it), the sector represents around 40% of the entire national paper industry, which in 2006 achieved overall turnover of €7.6bn (+2.6% on 2005), and is composed of 150 companies, providing 24,000 jobs directly and a similar number in induced industry. The overall production of packing paper increased in 2006 by 3% on the previous year, topping levels of 400,000 tonnes. This is a result that puts Italy in one of the leading positions in the world, after Germany, Sweden and Finland.
In detail, as far as regards the individual product areas, sales of the sector for glossy packing paper have shown a slight drop on those of the previous year, in which there was however extremely significant growth of around 13%. Overall, we have seen a shift towards lower weight papers and less sophisticated product ranges, to respond to the requirements of reduced costs of the food industry and large-scale distribution. In tissue papers (transparent papers characterised by their extreme thinness, usually used to protect particularly fragile objects), the strong penetration of producers from Eastern Europe in the Italian market has led domestic industries to implement expansion policies in the export markets, above all Germany, England and France. And the recovery of orders in spring has made it possible to push for an increase in sales prices on the domestic market and to keep machines running all year round, despite some sacrifices in terms of turnover and profits.
As far as regards polyethylene papers (used above all for photographic printing), the market situation remains favourable, despite the significant increase in the values of raw materials (polyethylene). These increases have not however put the market in difficulty, seeing the rapid adaptation of the sales price to production costs. The sector thus continues to enjoy a rosy situation, also thanks to the growing diffusion of these products, which have by now supplanted traditional chemical photographic papers.
Papers based on pulp have shown a trend influenced by growth in prices of raw materials (also due to China's entry into this business). This factor risks reducing the competitiveness of Italian companies and putting them in difficulty with respect to competitors that can exploit much lower labour costs than in Europe. The situation of corrugated cardboard is extremely different and in 2005 Italian exports achieved a new record of over 3.4 million tonnes, with an average growth in volume of 7.3%. This result, together with that achieved for packing cardboard (+31.7%), made it possible in 2005 to see the share of domestic production destined for foreign markets to rise to 34.5%, compared to 33.6% in 2004.
As far as concerns export markets, the best results were seen in new entries into the European Union, in particular Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, but we should also note the growth of volume exported towards Germany (+6.4%) and the recovery of exports to France (+0.5%), accounting for 17.6% of total exports. There was an interesting variation seen in exports towards Spain (+15%) and towards Turkey (+4.6%).
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