Paper is a thin material produced by pressing together moist fibres of cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets. It is a versatile material with many uses, including writing, printing, packaging, cleaning, decorating, and a number of industrial and construction processes. Papers are essential in legal or non-legal documentation.
Paper is an important material, used daily for many purposes worldwide. The global production of paper and cardboard stood at approximately 411 million metric tons in 2016. More than half of that production was attributable to packaging paper, while almost one third was attributable to graphic paper.
The paper industry has witnessed a decrease in the demand, wherein the P&W paper will decline at a CAGR of 2.2-2.9 percent until 2020, and the newsprint will decline at a CAGR of 4-5 percent. The rapid development of the internet and e-commerce business models are the major reasons behind the drop in the demand for paper.
Paper industry in India is mainly plantation based and is essential that more land must be brought under plantations of eucalyptus and other trees apposite for the making of papers. The paper industry also requires huge amount of soft water and paper utilized for newspapers is called newsprint. Its requirement is bound to grow noticeably.
India produces many varieties of papers, namely, printing and writing paper, packaging paper, coated paper and some speciality paper. Varieties under printing and writing paper are creame wove paper, super printing paper, maplitho paper (non-surface and surface size), copier paper, bond paper and coating base paper and others. The varieties under coated paper are art paper/board, chromo paper/board and others. There are approximately 600 paper mills in India, of which twelve are major players.
Globally over 400 million tonnes of paper and paper products are consumed. The world's three largest paper producing countries are China, the United States, and Japan (these three countries account for approximately half of the world's total paper production), while India accounts for a small but growing share of the global market. The global paper and pulp mills industry has contracted slightly over the past five years, primarily due to the shift to digital media and paperless communication across most developed economies.
