Economy, Domestic Economy
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Investment Opportunities Series: Coated Paper Production

Investment Opportunities Series: Coated Paper Production
Investment Opportunities Series: Coated Paper Production

Domestic production meets as little as 30% of the country’s need for paper and the rest is imported from Southeast Asian countries like South Korea, China and Indonesia, said advisor to Pars Rabin Khavaran Company.

Ehsan Alidoust noted that consumers prefer to use imported paper, but the condition of coated paper production is even worse.

According to Alidoust, Iranian companies do not manufacture this special type of paper at all, Persian daily Forsat-e Emrooz reported.

Coated paper is covered by a compound or polymer to impart specific qualities to the paper, including weight, surface gloss, smoothness or reduced ink absorbency.

Kaolinite, calcium carbonate and bentonite are used to coat paper for high quality printing used in packaging industry and in magazines. The chalk or china clay is bound to the paper with synthetic viscofiers, such as styrene-butadiene latexes and natural organic binders such as starch. This paper is normally used for advertising materials, books, annual reports and high quality catalogs.

Alidoust blames the high end-price of coated paper production on Iranian producers’ unwillingness to invest into this business.

“To resolve this issue, the government should raise the tariffs on paper import and lend support to paper producers,” he said.

He urges both government officials and private sector producers to focus their attention on investment in the production of this cultural and strategic commodity.

“Investment in coated paper production would prove to be lucrative since no specialized machinery is required to produce such papers and there is no need for new investments,” he said.

Financialtribune.com