What should the printing company do in the face of fluctuations in paper prices? Tell you the answer here
Paper price, paper price, this is a problem that has always caused headaches for printing and packaging companies. From time to time, a wave of rising prices has made many printing and packaging companies unable to guard against it. What are the reasons for the price increase, and will it rise in the future?
What is even more distressing is that the volatility of paper prices seems to be irregular. Today, prices may rise and tomorrow may be cheaper. Taking this year as an example, in the first half of the year, it was quite comfortable for the printing industry, but in the second half of the year, the situation turned sharply and the price of paper began to rise again.
Regarding the reasons for the fluctuation of paper prices, the industry generally believes that "capacity" is a keyword. Under the combined effects of “economic de-capacity”, “environmental de-capacity” and “new capacity shortage”, supply continued to shrink and the overall demand for the paper industry increased significantly.
There are many reasons for paper price fluctuations. For example, the country's current environmental protection policy is becoming more and more strict. As we all know, the pollution caused by the paper industry is more serious, which is an important factor in promoting price increases. The price increase bears part of the cost of environmental protection, which means that the price of subsequent papers is going to return to the lowest point in history. It is unlikely that the cost of green environmental protection will be borne by paper companies and then passed on to printing and packaging enterprises. .
At the same time, the prohibition of US waste import and other related policies has led to the lack of some relatively low-level raw paper materials (such as corrugated paper), which has caused some small paper mills to be forced to close. Another important reason is that the paper price was indeed at a lower price, so the appropriate price increase is also reasonable.
In addition to the rationality factor, there are some specialities. Generally speaking, price fluctuations always have a certain relationship with market supply and demand. However, the “involvement” of paper prices is partly due to the intentional reduction of production capacity by upstream paper mills, which artificially creates a situation of short supply. On the other hand, it may be that the large-cap stocks and the second-disc dealers manipulate the market price in the middle to speculate, and there is also the possibility of hot money speculation. Nowadays, commodity prices have generally risen, and paper products are no exception.
Therefore, in the whole process of the rise and fall of paper prices, many printing and packaging companies will find that because of the asymmetry of information, they have certain judgments on market trends, limited supply information, and supply side solidification. limitation.