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Paper & Board: Trends and Prospects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

G. F. Ray
G. F. Ray*
Affiliation:
National Institute
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Extract

Paper and board are typical intermediate products. Very little goes directly into personal or public consumption; the vast bulk goes to other industries—and to a wide range of industries at that. Of the 51 industry groups distinguished in the 1954 Input-Output Tables, only two (agriculture and oil refining) are shown as having no direct purchases of paper and board. Consequently any projection of future demand is a complex exercise.

Type
Research Article
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 32 , May 1965 , pp. 43 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © 1965 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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References

note (1) page 43 Prepared by the Board of Trade for 1954, HMSO 1961, Table B.

note (2) page 43 Including building board.

note (1) page 44 For a definition of the terms used (such as board or Kraft), see Glossary in Appendix v, page 69.

note (2) page 44 This is because there has been some tendency for pub lishers to change to thinner paper : see page 45, and Appendix v, page 69.

note (3) page 44 We are grateful to the Central Statistical Office for valuable assistance in providing the output indicators of the large number of industries involved.

note (4) page 44 As late as 1955 and 1956 five new Statutory Instruments were promulgated relating to the control of newsprint and the restrictions on newspaper production.

note (1) page 45 Appendix II defines the classification of the main grades of paper and board which are dealt with separately in this paper.

note (2) page 45 By using lighter newsprint, newspaper publishers were able to save up to one-sixth of the total tonnage used. This, in addition to saving paper costs, reduced the cost of distribution as well. (Royal Commission on the Press- 1961-62 Report, HMSO, page 51.)

note (3) page 45 Royal Commission on the Press— 1961-62 Report, HMSO, page 9.

note (4) page 45 The page numbers of the Financial Times increased as follows, from 1954 onwards :

The paging of the Daily Telegraph trebled—from 10 to 30 pages—between 1954 and 1964. (This does not include the colour supplement, which is not printed as newsprint.)

note (5) page 45 John Treasure, ‘Advertising Expenditure in 1961 : a reappraisal’ District Bank Review, December 1962 No. 144, page 30.

note (1) page 46 National Income Statistics, Sources and Methods, CSO, HMSO 1956, page 122.

note (2) page 46 Various other regressions were tried; this was the one that fitted best.

note (1) page 47 Most of building board is hardboard and about one- fifth is insulating board. Large quantities of hardboard are sold for ‘do-it-yourself’ work through retailers. This might be one of the reasons for the mediocre fit with the output of the construction industry.

note (2) page 47 In the 1954 Census of Production paper is shown as being used as an industrial material in electrical engineering (for press-board and paper yarn), in wires and cables, in carpets (for paper yarn), in leather goods, in shoe manufactures (for leather board and fibre board), in wallpaper, in toys, and in stationery. Since 1954 a number of new uses have emerged, such as plaster board liner, paper felt for roofing, flooring and bitumenising, fibre board interior door panels in car bodies and the backs of television sets. However, the aggregate quantity of non-packaging consumption is still small.

note (3) page 47 Of total Kraft consumption in 1963, of 730 thousand tons, about 230 thousand tons were used for sacks. The sacks in turn were used for animal food (about 40 per cent), fertilisers (25 per cent), chemicals (20 per cent), and cement (15 per cent).

note (1) page 49 These projections of the determinant series are taken from Britain 1975, a forthcoming publication of the National Institute.

note (1) page 50 It is not easy to establish to what extent the use of Kraft paper for making sacks has grown because Kraft sacks were substituting for jute bags; nor was it clear to what extent there is scope for further substitution of this kind.

note (1) page 51 The NEDC report assumes a paper coefficient of 1.075— that is, an annual growth rate of paper consumption of 4.3 per cent, matching an annual growth rate in national output of 4.0 per cent. The two projections are not strictly com parable, since the NEDC excludes building board, but this should not make a great deal of difference. It is perhaps worth noting that since the publication of NEDC's report (that is, from 1962 to 1964), the paper coefficient has been of the order of 1.3—1.5—depending on whether stock-adjusted figures are used for paper and board consumption or not.

note (1) page 53 Waste paper accounts for 27 per cent of the raw materials of British production. Another 13 per cent is supplied by other sources, such as home-produced pulpwood, waste wood, straw and other vegetable fibres. Of the imported materials, woodpulp is by far the most important, accounting for more than half of total paper and board production; esparto and similar grasses and imported pulpwood supply another 5 per cent. For more details, see Appendix table 24.

note (2) page 53 In 1962 the USA produced 32 million tons, Canada 8 million, Japan 5½ million and the United Kingdom 4 million tons. Japan overtook the United Kingdom in 1959.

note (3) page 53 See Glossary.

note (4) page 53 An up-to-date and large paper machine is probably the largest single unit used in industry, except perhaps for a steel rolling mill. A newsprint machine can be some 50 feet high, 30 feet wide and 100 to 120 yards long, making paper at 2,000-3,000 feet per minute. Its installation costs may amount to £6 million.

note (5) page 53 These are : Bowater, Inveresk, Reed, Thames Board Mills and Wiggins Teape.

note (6) page 53 Aylesford, Kent, with over 8,000 workers, is still the largest concentration of papermaking and processing capacity in Europe.

note (7) page 53 See Glossary.

note (8) page 53 Among the 121 individually recorded manufacturing industries in the Census of Production, 1958, there were only 30 with a net output per person employed higher than that in paper and board making; net output per person employed was 27½ per cent higher in paper and board making than the average of all manufacturing industries.

note (1) page 54 No information is available about the age of the paper machines at present working in British mills. According to a private estimate (The Paper Maker, December 1962, page 33) fewer than 100 of all paper machines (in fact, probably about 80) have been built since the 1939-45 war’.

note (2) page 54 Fuller figures are given in Appendix tables 13 and 14. The figures are for paper and board only, and exclude manufactures of paper and board and printed papers. Britain has a positive trade balance in both of these (Appendix table 16).

note (3) page 54 Holland, Germany, Ireland, France, Austria and Belgium, in this order. For details, see Appendix table 17.

note (1) page 55 Including Finland. It is very likely that one of the major reasons why Finland associated herself with EFTA was her substantial export of paper to the United Kingdom.

note (2) page 55 This increased to 7½per cent in 1964.

note (3) page 55 In the United Kingdom, a three-shift system is generally worked, whereas on the Continent the four-shift system is general.

note (4) page 55 Bowaters produce about two-thirds, and Reeds another one quarter, of home-made newsprint. Imports are mainly handled by two companies : British International Paper Ltd. for Canadian newsprint (but Associated Newspapers, having an interest in newsprint mills in Canada, import their supplies directly), and Scannews Ltd. an agency representing 14 Scandinavian newsprint producers. In very general terms marketing arrangements are these : the publishers buy their paper on long-term contracts with United Kingdom mills and British International Paper, the Canadian representative. There are also some long-term contracts with Scannews too (of smaller importance) but Scandinavian paper is most often bought when the publisher needs more paper than he has ordered under the long-term contracts. (Cf. Royal Com mission on the Press, 1961-62 Report, HMSO, September 1962, page 50.)

note (1) page 56 For example, the two large mills at Fort William and in Workington in Cumberland, using indigenous timber. Waste paper is, by and large, a raw material for cheap paper and boards only.

note (2) page 56 On an alternative assumption of a growth-rate in gross domestic product of 2.8 per cent a year, the increase in paper production could be only 3½ per cent a year.

note (3) page 56 For example, in 1964—in spite of the very big rise in demand—six smaller mills went out of operation, because they could not meet the competition.

note (4) page 56 The basis of this calculation is as follows :

The estimates under (b) and (c) have been arrived at on very conservative assumptions : an 8-9 per cent net yield of the fourth shift, and an annual 11/3 per cent increase only on the existing machines.

note (5) page 56 This is a rough estimate based on an approximate norm of £100 of capital expenditure required for the creation of one ton per year of additional capacity.