Paper sector foresees growing above the GDP regardless of the crisis
DCI 02/09/2009
The paper market will be maintained due to two factors out of a total of three that will leverage the consumption of the product in Brazil in 2009. This is the bet of the President of International Paper (IP), Maximo Pacheco, to get to the end of 2009 with growth above that of the Brazilian Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Because of that, the focus of the company for this year is the production of printing and writing paper intended for Brazil and Latin America countries, responsible for 75% of the sales of the subsidiary. According to Pacheco, the sales of paper should continue the ascending curve due to the growth of the digital inclusion in the Country, which ends up by increasing the consumption of paper with more people printing, and because of the Federal Program for the Schoolbook. These two factors were pointed because they present "great deficit in Brazil", according to the words of the Officer. For the commercial officer of IP, Nilson Cardoso, the demand in 2009 will take place apart the growth of the economy just as it was happening before. The expectation of the Officer is that the demand grows at least one percent above the GDP. The company bets on the increase of consumption in Brazil to supply the fall in other markets, like Asia's. One means presented by Cardoso relies upon the public funds with the proposition of including, in the schoolbook program, one notebook for each student benefiting from the program. "We do not have the figures, but that measure would increase the demand in more than 60 thousand tons of paper a year." The challenge of finding more market for the paper produced by IP does not promise to be easy. Until the end of the first quarter the new plant of the company, in Três Lagoas (MS), should go into operation and add another 200 thousand tons to the installed capacity of IP, which is currently of 800 thousand tons, until the end of the year. Today, according to Cardoso, the company works with a sales horizon of three months only, one of the reasons are stocks which are higher than those registered last year. With such a volume, the company reached an increase of 12% compared to the income of R$ 850 mi, registered in 2007. The result of the company is opposite to the results presented by the international head office in the end of January with a retreat of 95% in the profit. In Brazil the operating profit of IP reached US$ 186 million. According to Pacheco, that result did not cause more pressure over the Brazilian unit in order to improve the results as a means of offsetting the balance of the global financial results of the multinational company, but he affirms these figures show Brazil is consolidating as a strategic platform for the global operations.