Founded in 1972, Asia Pulp & Paper has an annual capacity of more than 18 million tons. The company is operating in 120 countries across six continents. In the 1990s APP built the Sinar Mas paper mill in Maharashtra to manufacture coated papers which was eventually sold to Indian paper manufacturer Ballarpur in 2001.
Hyderabad, 9 January 2019. Giving a boost to the economic development of the region, Indonesia’s Sinarmas Group’s Asia Pulp & Paper has concluded a deal with Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board to establish a paper plant that will eventually be its biggest at 5,000 metric tons. The Indonesian paper company will set up a paper unit at Ravur village in Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasam district with a foreign direct investment of US$ 3.5 billion (approximately Rs. 24,000 crore). The company has proposed to build the unit on 2,500 acres and when complete it says it will create 4,000 jobs directly and perhaps indirect employment to another 10,000.
The announcement says that the project is likely to uplift the livelihood of about 50,000 farmers in the area who will provide eucalyptus wood material for the pulp needed to manufacture paper. The paper unit will be completed in two phases. At the end of the second phase it should have a capacity of approximately 5 million metric tons of paper and board.
The deal was signed in the presence of Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu who was in Prakasam district to inaugurate the pylon of the new Ramayapatnam port in Ravur village. Welcoming the APP initiative, the chief minister said that the state will witness rapid growth with the upcoming paper unit and the Ramayapatnam port that are both in Prakasam district.
He said that the new port and the paper unit will transform the economic scenario of the state. He also sought cooperation of the farmers and said that the government will give top priority for their empowerment. The chief minister also asked the management of the Indonesian paper major to complete the project within 20 months.
Founded in 1972, Asia Pulp & Paper has an annual capacity of more than 18 million tons. The company is operating in 120 countries across six continents. In the 1990s APP built the Sinar Mas paper mill in Maharashtra to manufacture coated papers which was eventually sold to Indian paper manufacturer Ballarpur in 2001.
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
