All the product families of the paper industry experienced a drop in production in 2019 compared to 2018, revealed the French Union of Paper, Paper and Cellulose Industries (Copacel). And the deterioration of the economic context was accompanied in 2019 by a decline in paper and cardboard consumption in France (8.5 million tonnes in 2019, i.e. 3% less than in 2018).
Total paper production in France is down 7% in volume terms to 7,323 million tonnes in 2019 (down from 7,870 million tonnes in 2018). "This decrease is mainly due to the arjowiggins sites production shutdown " notes Philippe d'Adhémar, president of the employers' organization.
Graphic papers - which account for just over 22% of production in France in 2019 - fall sharply to 1,633 million tonnes compared with 2018, i.e. -22.6%.
Packaging - which represents about 60% of French production - "continued to grow in Europe, but declined in France." (-0.6%), due to various technical shutdowns and the closure of a small-capacity site producing flat cardboard at the end of 2018.
From 2000 to 2019, the share of graphic papers in the total production of
paper and board increased from 45% to 22% and packaging paper from 46% to almost 61%.
At the European level, in 2019 France will be in 5th place among paper and cardboard producers, behind Germany, Finland, Sweden and Italy.
Hygiene papers - about 11% of production - decreased by - 3.4%.
About pulp (market and integrated) Production volume is higher than in 2018 (+0.8% or 1.63 million tonnes). "In the year 2019, pulp companies have seen fewer incidents and downtime days affecting production"
"We are also seeing a drop in prices for all families, mainly due to a global slowdown in China that began in 2018 and which has affected all material savings, particularly paper, at the end of 2018
In value, the turnover 5.4 billion, due to the decrease in the selling price of most paper and paperboard families, itself caused by a slowdown in China beginning in 2018.
"The drop in input prices (of raw materials, energy, etc.) has not compensated for this drop in prices."
In 2019, domestic supply has fallen faster than consumption of paper and cardboard, which led to an increase in imports (+2.7%) to 5.2 million tonnes.
Major exporting countries to France are Germany (29%), Belgium (12%), Italy (11%) and Spain (10%).
