In September, the woodfree coated and uncoated paper market in Poland did not emerge from from the summer lull, despite the end of the holidays. Businesses have now been waiting more than a year for demand to return to an acceptable level after it plunged starting roughly mid-2022.
In the near term, companies’ hopes of a real recovery in the coated and uncoated fine paper business this autumn, like the one seen in years past, have been dashed, market players in Poland said. A minor improvement in printing and writing paper demand was witnessed here and there, but order intake was not giving any producers reason to breathe a sigh of relief. As the fourth quarter began, one insider described demand as “better but still far too weak.”
This substantial downswing is fanning the flames of competition among manufacturers and wholesalers. This resulted in a price decline in all segments of the fine paper market in the third quarter. And many experts expect the negative price trend for copy and offset paper as well as woodfree coated paper grades to continue.
