OREANDA-NEWS. September 18, 2013. Already for quite some time now, Voith Paper has seen its business with new machines and large rebuilds at locations in Germany and Austria severely stressed by a structural reduction in demand for graphic paper machines.

This structural change will also continue in the coming years. In addition, there is a weakening economic situation in the global paper market that is more severe than expected, as the company said in the press release received by Lesprom Network.

In particular, the Chinese market is growing noticeably more slowly than predicted by market analysts in the past year. Thus expectations in comparison to the previous year have once again been noticeably clouded. As a result of paper consumption that is less than expected, the willingness to invest in new paper machines on the part of Voith Paper’s customers is also cooling off further. This concerns all paper grades except sanitary paper (tissue).

In Europe, Voith Paper is not counting on a market recovery in the coming years. Rather, the business with new machines will remain at a low level. In China, predictions are for growth to increase again in the next two years. But this demand is mostly oriented to compact, locally produced machines of medium size – a trend that is further intensifying and to which Voith Paper has already reacted with specific restructurings. By contrast, the need for paper machines of the larger size segment, which Voith Paper previously produced mainly at its European locations, remains very slight.

“With the worsening of the market outlook and the intensifying of the structural changes on the demand side, the foundations for our future planning in Germany and Austria have also changed once again. The slackened demand in Europe can no longer be balanced by large orders from China. Thus there is no way around an adjustment of capacities at our main locations in Germany and Austria,” says Dr. Hans-Peter Sollinger, CEO at Voith Paper.

Voith Paper is a division of the Voith Group and the leading partner to and pioneer in the paper industry. Through constant innovations, Voith Paper is optimizing the paper manufacturing process, focusing on developing resource-saving products to reduce the use of energy, water, and fibers.