By Martin Bayliss
Food
and clothing apart, tissue paper is one of the most widespread consumer products
in the world, sold in virtually every country and available to all but the poorest
people. The global average consumption is around 4 kg per capita and growing
strongly in most countries where it is low.
This month Tissue World’s Projects Survey (page 20) shows just how rapidly
some countries are growing. Globally, capacity seems to be growing by close
to 1 million tons/yr. The Projects Survey shows 2.3 million tons for 2009- 11,
an average of nearly 800,000 tons/yr, and clearly incremental expansions and
projects unknown to Tissue World will add to that.
It is no surprise that China heads the list. It is expected to add close to
1 million tons of new capacity in 2009-11, representing roughly a 20% increase
in its total capacity in the period. But that does not take into account the
many smaller projects that are certainly being implemented by small Chinese
companies using domestic machinery. There may be dozens of these, many virtually
unknown outside the province where they are taking place.
It is an astonishing turnaround. There is no doubt that the growth of private
enterprise in China has been the most extraordinary global economic phenomenon
of the last 20 years or so, ranking up there with the fall of the Berlin Wall
and the collapse of the USSR as a defining historic event.
In 1986, when I first visited China, its production of paper and board was
around 5 million tons (less than 5 kg per capita), with tissue representing
just a few hundred grams per person.
In just over 20 years, its tissue consumption has boomed. No other country
comes close in percentage or tonnage. The USA (see chart) has added close to
2 million tons, Europe 4 million tons for some 30 countries, China more than
4.5 million tons, close to 30% of the global total. In percentages, the US has
added 38%, Europe 130%, China 800%. And the divergent growth rates seem set
to continue.
Two other countries covered in this issue of Tissue World have made great
contributions to tissue growth in the more recent past: Mexico, our feature
country this month; and Brazil, a country with a rich past and present in plantationbased
pulp and paper production generally.
Mexico is the No 1 producer in Latin America, according to FAO, as it has
been for most of the past 20 years. Since 1987, production has grown from 339,000
tons to 859,000 tons in 2007, says FAO. It is set to grow much more in the near
future.
Brazil is not far behind. Its production lags that of Mexico by perhaps
5% over much of the period. It too is adding capacity in spectacular fashion,
as the Projects Survey, as well as our article on Brazilian company Santher,
show.
Our final country report this issue is Romania. This year, 32 years after
my first visit, I discovered a different country from that of 1977, devastated
as it was by the impact of a major earthquake as well as by the longer-term
impact of the Socialist government.
Then, Romania was a country closed to outside influence, bereft of frivolous
consumerism, rigid in its political and social conformity. Today, it is
a fledgling western state, still relatively poor but free, open and dynamic
– and packed with consumer ‘goodies’ such as western tissue products as
well as a prosperous tissue sector including foreign as well as local investors.
Surprisingly, many Romanians, even businessmen who have benefited most
from the changes, look back to the benefits of the Ceaucescu years. Today,
they say, you have free speech and buy endless varieties of enhanced tissue
products in modern supermarkets, but you have no right to a job or to effective
government.
Tissue is a great guide to economic progress but it is less good as an
indicator of social and economic satisfaction, it seems.
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