Just before the Paper Arabia 2009 exhibition we had an interaction with Mr. Saifee Jani, who enjoys strong presence in the Middle East market.
Commenting about the export potential for Indian paper mills in Middle East Mr. Saifee Jani, Managing Director, Paper “Huge potential in Middle East for Indian paper mills” Link International Ltd said, “Until the recent world-wide meltdown, we saw exponential growth in the Middle East, especially in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain etc. The growth has been in double digits for the last 4-5 years in construction industry, IT, Consumer Goods etc. Number of tourists to UAE also increased manifold during this period.”
“One of the natural beneficiaries of the boom, were Printing and Packaging Industry in the region. The demand of packaging material has attracted local investments in recent years and several kraft paper mills, tissue mills and one board mill has come up in GCC countries. However, there is no paper mill in the region that can cater to the printing and publishing industry. Therefore the demand of printing paper and most of paperboard requirement has to be met from imports. Due to this there is huge potential for Indian paper mills to meet the requirement of various grades of paper and paperboard due to the proximity of this market to India. However, majority of Indian paper mills have to gear up their production, packing and quality of their product to international standards to meet the demand of Middle East countries.”
Further on the recycled fibre scenario he said, “For the last 8 to 10 months we have all seen a steep fall in waste paper prices and now recovering the prices to a very respectable level for both collectors and paper mills. In order to sustain the waste paper collection business, prices were to be at a respectable level. Due to the low production of super market waste and printer’s waste there is still a gap between the demand and supply in waste paper. However, after the financial recovery expected soon, we should have more availability of waste paper. The dependence on this basic raw material by a number of Indian paper mills will continue and if the demand picks up in the International market, the prices are bound to go up and reach a level which prevailed a year ago.
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