Kiosk 360. Like the rest of the world, Morocco is also living at the rate of a shortage of paper and cardboard, mainly flat or duplex cardboard. Details in this press review of the weekly La Vie Éco.
For almost a year, the world has been experiencing a shortage of paper and cardboard. Morocco is not escaping the crisis, the sector navigating in a zone of turbulence. As a reminder, two types of cardboard constitute the market offer: corrugated and flat or duplex.
The latter, used for shoeboxes, sugar, medicines, etc., has not been produced in Morocco since 2018, when production stopped by CMCP, a strategic decision taken by the multinational.
Since then, the market has started to import this type of cardboard. But with the current shortage internationally, the scarcity is being felt. And the problem on the segment of flat or duplex paper arises with acuteness, notes Eco Life in its weekly delivery.
Faced with this shortage, manufacturers explain that there are substitutions that are made in the flat paper market by resorting to 200 g and 250 white paper. The latter can replace flat cardboard, but does not solve the whole problem. . Consequence: 80% of the problem remains unanswered.
According to operators in the sector, the shortage also affects some types of paper such as that used for books and school notebooks, continues the weekly.
As a reminder, Morocco is a net importer of paper. It only manufactures 20% of what it consumes (200,000 tonnes of all types, 950,000 tonnes consumed). The remaining 80% are imported from Asia, the United States and especially Europe.
According to Eco Life, several importers have been affected by this crisis for the simple reason that they buy small quantities, like the printers who used to buy a container per one or two months.
With this crisis, producers favor their large accounts before turning to small requests and so-called temporary customers. They want firm buying promises now for future quantities to come in 3 or 6 months due to supply pressures.
How then to explain this shortage. Polled by the weekly, manufacturers explain that it is due to the obvious recovery of the main economies internationally, particularly in China, the United States and Europe.
Large demanders for paper and cardboard, the strong demand in these markets has increased the price of these materials. The shortage then worsened due to the tension on supply-demand against the backdrop of saturation of production capacities.
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