Anti-dumping Case Withdrawal May Drive Down Coated-paper Price

Taipei, Oct.31, 2012 (CENS)--With Taiwan Paper Industry Association (TPIA) having withdrawn an anti-dumping investigation related to imported coated paper recently, Taiwan's papermakers including Cheng Loong Corp., Chung Hwa Pulp Corp. (CHP), and Yuen Foong Yu Paper Mfg. Co., Ltd. (YFY) may suffer impact from price decline of the product.

A representative of TPIA indicated that the Ministry of Finance ruled on four companies from China and S. Korea, which supply more than 80% of imported coated paper in Taiwan, to enjoy duty exemption. Despite such verdict and to maintain sound up and downstream relations, TPIA decided to withdraw the anti-dumping investigation.

Statistics revealed by TPIA show annual output of fine paper, industrial paper, household paper, and specialty paper in Taiwan reach 4.3 million tonnes, to which coated paper contributes about 6% or 237,000 tonnes, 70% of which manufactured by YFY and 20% by Cheng Loong.

As YFY has transferred it fine-paper business to Chung Hwa Pulp, the two firms expect bigger impact from the withdrawal of the anti-dumping case compared to the other papermakers.

A representative of YFY said prices of coated paper have remained relatively low in the market for a long time, in response to which the fine-paper business has refocused on manufacturing of high value-added specialty paper, limiting the said impact.

A representative of Chung Hwa Pulp noted that after the merger with YFY's fine-paper business, Chung Hwa Pulp will continue to develop high-margin products and improve product quality to counter low-priced, imported coated paper.