International paper prices are likely to continue increasing through the first quarter of this year, paper maker YFY Inc (永豐餘控股) said yesterday.
As the price of wastepaper, the most crucial material for paper makers to generate pulp, soared 30 percent year-on-year to US$225 per tonne in the US last year, a YFY official said the company plans to increase its prices this quarter.
YFY manufactures a wide range of paper products, such as pulp, household-use paper and industrial paper.
The official said YFY would take its customers’ feedback into account when adjusting product prices. She declined to elaborate.
Chinese paper makers last year raised prices of industrial paper products by 33 percent on average, she added.
Last month, Cheng Loong Corp (正隆紙業), the nation’s biggest industrial paper maker, announced it would increase prices by between 12 and 15 percent, or about NT$1,500 (US$46.9) per tonne, this year to reflect rising raw material and transportation costs.
Long Chen Paper Co (榮成紙業) is also considering raising its prices.
“We will follow market mechanisms and the [new] product prices will be in line with global trends,” Long Chen spokesman Tsou Yung-fang (鄒永芳) said by telephone, adding that wastepaper makes up nearly 60 percent of product costs.
Apart from price increases, the nation’s major paper makers also plan to continue expanding their capacity.
YFY is to set up new production lines at its paper plant in Taoyuan, which has an annual capacity of 698,000 tonnes of industrial paper products.
Cheng Loong is constructing a new plant in Vietnam which is scheduled to begin operations next year in a bid to develop a complete supply chain in Southeast Asia. The new factory is to have an installed capacity of 300,000 tonnes per year.
Long Chen’s new plant in China’s Hubei Province is to begin operations in the third quarter with an annual capacity of 850,000 tonnes.
Shares of YFY surged by 9.92 percent to NT$10.75, while those of Cheng Loong gained 9.7 percent to NT$14.7 and Long Chen rose 5.73 percent to NT$18.45.
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