The bad news for newspaper publishers — and there are over 40,000 newspapers in India — has just grown worse. The price of newsprint, imported or indigenous, is set to touch $1,000 per tonne, and this after a 23 per cent increase over the previous four months that took prices to $760 a tonne in March.
Factor in the April jump and newsprint prices, which typically account for 50 to 60 per cent of production costs, have risen over 60 per cent over the last six months.
“It’s probably an industry first for prices to shoot up so much in less than six months,” said Mohit Jain, director (business & commercial), Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd.
To be sure, newsprint prices touched $1,000 a tonne in 1995 but the price rise was over 12 months, newspaper industry professionals recall.
The outlook for the rest of the year is bleak. “We do not expect any respite for the next six to eight months,” said a newsprint importer.
The price rise has everyone worried. “Imported newsprint now costs $945 a tonne,” said an astounded Sameer Kapoor, president, Metropolitan Media Company, the joint venture between Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd and HT Media Ltd, which prints the Delhi tabloid Metro Now.
A Mumbai-based newsprint importer, who has been in the business for 35 years, admitted that good-quality paper, especially pink newsprint, is quoting over $900 a tonne.
Imported newsprint prices have been climbing since December, but what irks Gujarati daily Sandesh’s Chairman Falgunbhai Chimanbhai Patel is that even Indian newsprint manufacturers have raised rates by Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,000 ($125 to $175) a tonne “for no reason”.
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