Paper Market Forecast 2019

Vietnam's paper industry in 2018 has a strong growth compared to 2017, which is also the highest growth rate in the history of Vietnam's paper industry. Consumption of paper reached 4.946 million tons, up 16.0%; production reached an output of 3,674 million tons, an increase of 31.0%; exports reached 809,250 tons, up 63.0%; imports reached 2.081 million tons, up 6.0%. Value: Exports of paper and finished paper products reached 1.088 billion USD, up 50.0% compared to 2017.

Particularly for packaging paper in 2018, the total consumption of packaging paper reached 3.818 million tons, accounting for 77.2% of the total consumption of all types of paper, up 20.0% over the same period. the highest growth rate in the history of Vietnam's paper industry. In which, the consumption of non-chalk packaging paper reached 3.17 million tons, accounting for 83.0%; chalk-coated paperboard reached 648,400 tons (without statistics on coated packaging used for liquids such as milk, wine, juice,...), accounting for 17.0%. The production of paper for packaging in 2018 reached 3.046 million tons, accounting for 81.3% of the proportion of paper production, up 37.0% over the same period. Packaging paper was the export item with the strongest increase of 641,000 tons, accounting for 79.2% of the total amount of paper and up 99% over the same period.

Paper Market Forecast 2019

World: Global consumption of surface and corrugated paper is forecast to grow by 3.1%, production capacity to increase by 5.2%, mainly in North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Asia. Thus, supply is exceeding demand by about 2.1% in 2019.

Vietnam: world consumption of printing and writing paper is forecast to grow in 2019 by 1.0%, of which Asia is forecast to increase by 1.0%. Domestic consumption still grew by about 3-5%. The CPTPP and EU agreements and the opportunity to export notebooks and books to the US market increased due to the impact of the US-China trade war, leading to more opportunities for processing notebooks and books for export.

The world's consumption of packaging paper in 2019 is forecast to grow by 3.1%, of which the Asian region is forecast to increase by 4.3%. The trend of converting non-recyclable packaging or low recycling rates to paper packaging is strong. Domestic consumption is forecast to grow by over 12%, domestic paper processing production for export will increase sharply due to enterprises expanding production scale and some new capacities put into production with large capacities such as Oji (Ha Nam) 50 million m2/year of paper in the second quarter of 2019.

World tissue paper consumption in 2019 is forecast to increase by 4.0%, of which Asia is forecast to increase by 5.8%. Domestic consumption in 2019 is forecast to increase by over 6.0%, due to population growth and the food service industry, hotels, etc.

However, Vietnam's paper industry may still face many challenges in terms of competition in the export market and the domestic market, and the recovered paper materials are still mainly dependent on imports. Therefore, businesses need to have a specific plan to ensure their production and business efficiency.

-According to VPPA-