BJ Ball passes rising paper costs to printers

Australia’s largest paper player follows merchant trend by increasing its prices across its range by 5% to offset growing production and distribution costs.

According to Peter Friend-Ngui, national marketing manager for BJ Ball, the time of paper merchants keeping price fluctuations as predictable as possible is at an end. The price increase will be in effect 3 October.

“After taking the high Australian dollar and rising energy and other input costs into consideration, we feel that this increase is a bearable level for the market at this time and gives us some breathing room,” he says.

The largest paper player in the region will be raising prices on its coated papers and boards, uncoated papers and boards, carbonless, self-adhesive and synthetics, copy paper, packaging.

Last month Australian Paper increased prices across its offset range by the same amount, leaving merchants no alternative but to pass it on. In a statement BJ Ball said, We have taken a number of measures to improve the cost effectiveness of our business however it only goes so far in sustaining the very low paper process we are currently seeing.