2022: Paper industry defies difficult market conditions

The German pulp and paper industry demonstrated relative strength last year in an extremely difficult environment. This is the conclusion of the industry association DIE PAPIERINDUSTRIE in its annual report. After the Corona catch-up year of 2021, production fell by 6.5 per cent to 21.6 million tonnes, but thus returned to the pre-crisis level of many years ago. The number of employees was maintained. A fair wage agreement jointly supported by the social partners had also contributed to this.

"Many companies had to adjust their production to the gas volumes still purchased at normal prices and the lower demand at the end of the year due to previous stockpiling by customers", explains the President of DIE PAPIERINDUSTRIE, Winfried Schaur, the decline in volumes. The increased costs for energy and raw materials had been passed on to the product prices. This is reflected in the 36.3 per cent increase in turnover to 21.2 billion euros. Schaur emphasises that despite the difficult situation, the industry is making its contribution to the transformation to CO2-neutral production. "We continue to work intensively on the paper industry of the future. However, for this we also need the appropriate political framework conditions, such as a temporary industrial electricity price, to maintain international competitiveness during the transition period."

Schaur emphasised the importance of the energy-intensive industries. They are at the beginning of important value chains and form the backbone of Germany as an industrial location. Paper, board and cardboard are the basic material for a number of system-relevant products such as packaging for medicines and food, hygiene products and media. The German paper industry, with its 46,000 employees, is the number one in Europe and with its waste paper use rate of 79 percent, it is an important element of the sustainable circular economy.