Determination shown by many a woodfree coated paper manufacturer seems to be finally paying off. The vast majority of customers in Italy has been paying more for coated fine paper since October, reports say.
Paper producers have made different price hikes depending on whether they were selling sheets or reels, with coated sheets bearing higher mark-ups than reel paper. Major customers with six-month contracts are evidently not affected by the latest price hikes and continue to source paper at the same prices until the end of the year.
Manufacturers noted that the latest price round had ended well for them despite all of the difficulties on the market in Italy - slow demand, significant surplus supply and poor payment practices. Paper mills now want to try to consolidate the higher prices and fend off possible attacks from buyers. A few of them are thus apparently already planning temporary downtime to fight excess supply and adjust output to the current demand.
A variety of paper merchants confirmed higher purchasing prices for October deliveries. A few of them said they had passed on these mark-ups to their customers immediately and in full. Others intended to do so in November and felt that they had a good chance of passing at least a portion of the price hike to their customers.
