Newsprint prices in France often unchanged, magazine paper prices under pressure

摘要

Paper producer's demands for a price hike for newsprint in France has only met with sporadic success. In most cases, contract prices are unchanged and in rare cases show small reductions. In the case of magazine paper, especially LWC, paper manufacturers had to cope with lower prices while the drop was less pronounced in the case of SC paper. However, prices were caught in the wake of lower overall demand. This is also the main issue in the segment for woodfree coated paper, where prices were left mostly unchanged in January as in the case of uncoated grades but face sustained pressure. Manufacturers of recycled corrugated case material and kraftliner want to leverage the perceived unexpected tightness of the market in January to hike prices and have announced mark-ups for deliveries in February and March. The hikes were still being negotiated at the end of January. The announced hikes for GD cartonboard has yielded little by way of results as prices remained mostly unchanged in the first month of the year. GC prices saw minor reductions.