By Martin Bayliss
One
of the key focuses
of this issue
of Tissue World
is Russia. It is a country that has fascinated, influenced and
sometimes frightened the world for 300 years or more. In science,
arts and politics, Russia has far outpunched its economy.
A country of unimaginable size and diversity, vast natural wealth
and intellectual achievement, it has nonetheless created not
a single consumer product with a global reputation. Indeed, most
Russians would prefer an American or European label to any domestic
product.
No wonder Winston
Churchill’s description of the country - “a riddle,
wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” - is so apt 50
years on. Few places on earth seem so incomprehensible – all
at once at the leading edge of 21st century technology and shrouded
in the mists of a pervasive past.
In tissue, its performance is surprisingly backward. Per capita
consumption is barely a tenth that of the USA and not much more
than half that of China. An astonishing figure, given the relative
wealth of the two countries. In purchasing power parity (PPP),
Russian are nearly three times as rich as Chinese.
And, while China - largely through its repatriate Sino-Indonesian
Widjaja family – is adding new tissue machines by the dozen,
Russia has just two machines capable of making high-quality product.
These two started this year; there is one more on the way (SCA
Tula), according to Tissue World sources.
Russia also suffers in comparison to the Middle East, with which
it also shares many economic parallels, notably oil wealth feeding
rapid growth. From Egypt to the Arabian Gulf, new machines have
started every few months in recent years, with much of the output
for export. This despite the fact that Russia has the world’s
largest forests and plentiful water, critical for papermaking,
while the Middle East has virtually none of either.
These days it is fashionable to focus on the BRIC countries,
nations with large populations and potentially rapid economic
growth (see Table). The statistics are not totally reliable but
in broad terms they show both many similarities and a remarkable
diversity. The most striking row is the last one.
How to explain the differences? Many ideas have been offered,
by Russians and outsiders. Historical and cultural diversity,
to be sure. Russia’s size and infrastructure problems,
no doubt. Statistical inconsistencies, to some extent, perhaps.
We have no satisfactory reason to offer, any more than we can
comprehend the well-documented cases of apparent paupers who
died leaving millions in a mattress.
Whatever the reasons – and they are no doubt complex and
deep-rooted – they are nothing compared to the case of
India. There it takes $56,000 of GDP to buy a kilo of tissue,
according to official statistics. Eight times as much as in Russia,
30 times as much as in China. These figures may be open to question,
but the fact remains that India has virtually no production of
high-quality tissue.
But more of India another day. What of Russia? Its people have
waited and waited
to see the fruits
of the economic
progress that
have been forecast
for so long. It seems at last to be arriving, though not yet
for tissue. But the real answer lies with the generation of our
cover girl, Anna Akhapkina. New ideas, new expectations. And
none of the baggage of a constricting Soviet past. But don’t
expect Asian-style
dragon performance
from the old
Russian bear. TW
Teaching
an old bear new tricks
