Ahmed Jaber, Egypt’s Undersecretary of the Export Council for Printing, Packaging, Paper, Literary and Artistic Works, said that Egypt’s exports of kraft paper saw a rise in the first eight months of this year due to the prohibitive cost of producing similar quality of paper abroad, and a prevailing trend to import it from Egypt.
Jaber explained that kraft and fluting papers are brown papers used for many industrial and commercial applications, especially so in packaging operations such as the manufacture of cartons and other related products.
He added that many countries have tended to import from Egypt due to their ability to produce high quality paper at a lower price.
According to a statement from the Export Council, fluting paper exports jumped to $48.98 million during the first eight months (January to August 2021), compared to $4.8 million in the same period in the previous year. Kraft exports increased to $3.826 million in the first eight months of 2021, compared to $471,000 during the same period last year.
The increase in demand for exporting kraft paper and fluting paper has in turn created a gradual hike in their local prices since the beginning of the year to 10,000 pounds per ton currently, as compared to the previous 5,000 pounds per ton, Jaber told the Arabic news web portal Masrawy.
The Undersecretary also stated that the increase in the prices of kraft and fluting papers has affected the local market, pointing out that factories are heading towards production and export of the paper instead of selling it to the local market to reap the benefits of the price increase.
