Page 41 from: December 2016

41December 2016

age of US$ 123 per ton FOB seller’s
dock since a small reduction was seen
in September.
According to traders, market drivers to
watch in December include: significant
containerboard downtime expected in
China prior to the Chinese New Year,
which could reduce demand for import-
ed fibre; ocean freight hikes expected
in Europe, which could make American
fibre more attractive to Chinese mills;
and a strengthening US dollar (the
currency has been on the rise since
the presidential election), which could
make US fibre less attractive to Chinese
buyers.

Asia
Limited availability
November has been a very interesting
month for the brown grades of recov-
ered fibre. Whereas most mills and sup-
pliers anticipated a slight drop in prices,
the opposite has been happening in the
Far East. Demand is good but container
availability is very limited, pushing many
mills into a state of mild panic because
they are not able to obtain the volumes
they require.
For the middle and deinking grades,
prices have been stable for some time.
Mills have been prepared to pay the
increase in freight rates. South Korea

in particular appears to be a highly sta-
ble buyer and mills are already placing
orders for January. Mills in Indonesia,
meanwhile, had actually planned not to
buy much more in 2016 but, with prices
rising, they have jumped into the market
to secure some tonnage. With the major
financial issues in India, many of the
country’s mills have stopped machines
temporarily; demand has dropped and
some mills have been cancelling orders.
In China, consuming mills have pushed
up their prices because limited con-
tainer availability has been preventing
them from securing sufficient supplies
of material.
Indeed, ocean carriers are looking to
push freight rates ever higher but space
is still very limited.

Paper

Contributing to the
Recovered Paper Market
Analysis:
• Melvin de Groot (Van Gelder

Recycling, the Netherlands)
• Mariëlle Gommans (Bel Fibres,

Belgium)
• Ken McEntee (Publisher of The

Paper Stock Report, USA)

Bel Fibres SA
Rue de Monte en Peine 2
7022 HYON
Belgium

Phone (+32) 65.760.960
Fax (+32) 65.760.965
E-mail [email protected]
www.belfibres.be

Experienced specialists in
Collecting and recycling of

• Paper
• Board
• Plastics
• Archives destruction

Bel Fibres SA
Rue des Roseaux 2D Phone (+32) 65.760.960
7331 Saint-Ghislain Fax (+32) 65.760.965
Belgium E-mail [email protected]
www.belfibres.be

Textiles
Closed: November 25, 2016

By Alan Wheeler, director of the UK’s
Textile Recycling Association and gen-
eral delegate of BIR’s textiles division

Re-emergence of bogus collectors
The signals from international exporters of used clothing
are mixed but there are some common threads. In the UK,
the fall in values across all grades seems to have plateaued
and increases may be emerging. Reports emanating from
France and Germany suggest markets for collected and sort-
ed goods are stable. However, late payment by the importers
is continuing to cause significant cash-flow problems for
many businesses in Europe.
With the sector being in a slightly less dire economic situ-
ation than for several years, we are beginning to see the
return of bogus charity bag collectors and bank operators.
A simple message must go out to all police forces: if a sham
business removes a clothing collection bank which has
appropriate licences in place and may be raising money
for a charity or operated in conjunction with a local author-
ity, and replaces it with its own bogus charity bank, then

this is theft. The banks and their contents can be worth
thousands of Euros, and so this must be recorded and
investigated as a crime.
However, the biggest issue for used clothing dealers is the
proposed ban on imports by East African Community mem-
ber states in 2019, with the huge import duty increases
already imposed by some of these countries making trading
much more difficult. We are also waiting to see where the
newly-devised ‘entry price’ mechanism will be set by the
Ukrainian authorities on all used clothing from the EU; this is
due to come into force on January 1 2017. The EU’s DG Trade
let this slip into its trade agreement with Ukraine without
consulting anyone from the EU’s used clothing sector.
It would take a brave person to predict with any degree of
certainty what will happen to the trade in 2017. But for sure,
fortunes will be mixed and there will be surprises.