European White Top Liner Usage Doubles in Past Decade
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White top liner usage has been increasing the past 10 years to reach 12% of all containerboard consumed in Europe in 2010, from just 5% at the beginning of the last decade, according to a new report by RISI, Brussels, Belgium, titled Outlook for European White Top Containerboard Markets. While the European containerboard market has grown overall by 5 million metric tpy since 2000, there has been a continued shift from brown grades to white top liners, with increasing requirements for high quality printing on corrugated boxes and further penetration of ready shelf packaging.
In 2009, while demand in other segments plummeted, both the white top testliner and white top kraftliner segments have been growing above the rate of growth in overall containerboard, the report notes (see below).
"We believe, in general, that the white top segment provides a much better pricing prospect for containerboard producers than the brown segments and could result in better profit margins," explains Orifjon Abidov, RISI's European Paper Packaging Economist and study author. "We spell out our reasoning behind this in this research."
The report analyzes demand, supply, and trade for all consuming and producing countries of white top containerboard in both Western and Eastern Europe since 2002, and provides a five-year forecast until 2016. More information is available online.
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