Major Growth Expected for India's Paper Industry

 

A report this week by Recycling International (Netherlands) featured comments from BIR world president Ranjit Singh Baxi at this past week’s paper recycling conference in Düsseldorf, Germany. "India is the only country growing successively by over 7% in the last five years. It will become an even more important business partner for Europe than before," he began.

"I am sure India’s economy will stay strong in the next two to five years as well. For 2017, the anticipated growth is 7.5%" Baxi said. He noted that India’s annual paper consumption currently stands at 13 million metric tons and the figure is growing at an average of 7.6% per year.

With a population of 1.25 billion people and a per-capita paper consumption of more than 10 kg, there are 800 paper mills operating countrywide to feed the sharp rise in demand.

"Newsprint production will be around 6 million metric tons by 2025, requiring about 8 million metric tons of recycled fiber," Baxi observed. "For Duplex board production, the figure is thought likely to touch 5 million metric tons by 2025, requiring 6.6 million metric tons of recovered fiber. And kraft paper production is expected to be at 7 million metric tons, requiring 9.5 million metric tons of recycled fiber."

According to Baxi, these figures beg an obvious question: "Where is the raw material to meet this huge demand?" In light of China’s uncertain market, he suggested it is "high time" that European companies start thinking about finding a new home for their material. As he put it: "Find a home for it today before someone kicks you out."