In an interview with Jam-e- Jam newspaper, Abolfazl Roghani Golpayegani, the head of the Syndicate of Paper and Cardboard Manufacturers of Iran, said about the challenges of the industry.

Our country’s industry is subject to political trends. The impact of exchange rate fluctuations, bank interest rates and sanctions on industry is being well illustrated.

There are some issues within our industry that are within the will of the producer, but there are some issues outside the industry that are beyond the will of the producer; such as laws passed in parliament; exchange rate fluctuations and the decisions made by governments on the prevention of exports or increase or decrease in imports.

Manufacturers are only involved in determining the cost price of products; for instance, what to produce, how to supply human resources, how to supply raw materials, how to package the product, and what target markets to choose.

The problem that industries have been facing for many years is exchange rate fluctuations.

The second issue is banking and financing issues which have created many problems for us. The third issue is taxes, which in the 1401 budget will put more tax pressures on industries.

Social security issues have also posed many challenges for producers. The diverse rules and the prompt hetrogenesis decisions which are made for the industry pose major challenges to the industry, while manufacturers must think of creating a stable environment to be able to market and brand in order to have an active and strong presence in global markets, which will definitely create better conditions for the industry.

Paper import laws benefit importers

Roghani also referred to the paper production sector and said, “The paper sector does not have proper laws to protect the production of writing and newsprint paper. Our rules are in favor of importers.

Therefore, production capacity should be created in this sector, and the laws should be amended. Only if these cases are corrected can production problems be solved.

However, in the case of packaging paper, the country is in a good position to the extent that the entire requirements of the country can be met. It is even possible to export well because there are the necessary qualities, and we have been able to stabilize our situation and solve problems.

We can export over 300,000 to 400,000 tons of packaging paper a year, but we have exported at most 50,000 tons in the first half of this year because strict regulations and restrictions have been imposed. It is worth nothing that we can bring proper foreign currency in this sector by exporting.

There is no problem in selling paper products inside the country, and the products meet the domestic needs. Paper can be a good source of income for our country. Paper has been damaged in some areas and has grown in others. In the areas of health, we have had good growth in the field of tissue packaging, but our industry has suffered in the field of writing paper because digital education has reduced the printing of textbooks, and the activity of publishers has decreased