President's report featuring Asia

The news that China has become the world’s second-largest economy behind the USA was received with a great deal of interest within the recycling industry. Japan’s GDP figure for the second quarter of this year was US$ 1.2 trillion while China was at US$ 1.33 trillion. Thus, China has now overtaken Germany, France, Great Britain and now Japan to become the second-largest driver of global growth.

This positive story was dampened slightly in the third quarter when slower growth was forecast by all the major global economies. Growth in manufacturing output was noticeably slowing, affecting demand for both recovered fibre and new paper. Exports from China and other leading emerging economies registered a year-on-year decline for the second quarter. For 2010 as a whole, China is projected to grow more than 10% and India in excess of 7.5%.

At the start of the third quarter, we saw some strengthening of prices due to increased domestic demand and lower levels of collection. The forthcoming Asian Games taking place in China also contributed to this upturn in demand which unfortunately did not last long enough.

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Ranjit Baxi
J&H Sales International Ltd
President of the BIR Paper Division