BRUSSELS, January 11, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

White top liner usage has been increasing over the last 10 years to reach 12% of all containerboard consumed in Europe in 2010, from just 5% at the beginning of the last decade.  While the European containerboard market has grown overall by 5 million tonnes 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.  These are the findings in a new study Outlook for European White Top Containerboard Markets  published by RISI, the leading information provider for the global forest products industry.

(Logo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20080521/NEW122LOGO )

"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."

Outlook for European White Top Containerboard Markets 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. 

Included in the study are:

• Recent trends in European containerboard markets
• European White Top Containerboard Producers and their market shares
• Demand growth rate changes for each containerboard grade since 2002
• Capacity growth rate movements since 2002
• Anticipated European White Top Testliner and White Top Kraftliner market developments through 2016
• Price trends for White Top Testliner and White Top Kraftliner since 2000
• Production costs and price changes over the next five years
• Profitability developments for White Top Containerboard since 2000
• Profitability expectations over the next five years

For more information visit http://www.risi.com/ewtc.

For Press Enquiries, please contact:
Nichola Heer, Marketing Manager
Tel: +32-2-536-0770
nheer@risi.com

Notes to Editors:

1)  About RISI (http://www.risi.com)

Owned by UBM plc listed on the London Stock Exchange, RISI is the leading information provider for the global forest products industry. The company works with clients in the pulp and paper, wood products, timber, biomass, tissue, nonwovens, printing and publishing industries to help them make better decisions.

Headquartered in Boston, MA, RISI operates additional offices throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia.

2)  About UBM plc (http://www.ubm.com)

UBM plc is a leading global company. We inform markets and bring the world's buyers and sellers together at events, online, in print and provide them with the information they need to do business successfully. We focus on serving professional commercial communities, from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewellery traders, from farmers to pharmacists around the world. Our 6,000 staff in more than 30 countries are organised into specialist teams that serve these communities, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently.

SOURCE RISI