ITALY MAKES BID TO MEET HOME PAPER DEMAND

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6843, 22 February 1929, Page 3

ITALY MAKES BID TO MEET HOME PAPER DEMAND

IMPORTS CUT BY ADAPTING MANUFACTURE TO NSWSPRINT AND CHEAPER GRADES.

Although Italy, largely owing to the still scanty development of nowspaper advertising, ranks low in the list of paper-using countries, nevertheless the recent development in the use of paper, moro especially for newsprint, has led the Italian industry to adapt itself to new systems of production, so as to hold its own against foreign competition, both at home and abroad. Prior to the war imports already considerably exceeded exnorts, but the total value of exports and imports diff ered but little, showing that tho latter consisted chiefly of the cheaper qualities required for newpapers, and of inferior quality cardboards, while the Italian paper industry specialised id the production of the finer qualities in which the value of the work compensates for the heavier cost of the raw material. Italian paper mills now supply a large proportion of the demand on the home market, while exporting considerable quantities, more especially to South America and to the East. In 1925, 400 mills belonging to 370 concerns were at work, equipped with 276 machines on tho level, 346 cylindrical and 25 vats for the production of hand-made paper. At the present time a group of 17 paper manufacturing firms runs 27 miles equipped with some hundred machines of the most up-to-date and powerful makes, employing from 13.000 to 14,000 persons. Another group of 30 firms possesses about 70 , „ ;>nd employs from 5500 to 6500 persons. In 1927 there were in all 381 paper manufacturing concerns, employing approximately 26,200 workers Small Home Production. Now that rags have been largely replaced by wood-pulp products, only a sma.l part of the raw material required is produced at home, and Italy has to make her purchases abroad. The most important of these imports is chemical wood pulp which Italy obtains mainly from Austria and Sweden, smaller quantities coming from Ger •<inv. Canada, Finland, Norway and Switzerland. The home production is

Uiiiiug, compared to the quantitrequired by the paper and artificial silk industries, but it is growing. Kjoiue 30 factories are now engaged in manufacturing mechanical wood pulp. The output is from 60,000 to 80,000 metric tons per annum; it i 3 estimated that in 1927 it amounted to nearly 100,000 tons. From time' immemorial rags, waste paper and other waste have been collected and sorted, but the erection of specially equipped workshops for sorting tho rags intended for paper mills or other industrial uses only dates back some 50 .years, and has given rise to a branch of the trade of special importance to Italy, both in view of the large capital investment it represents and the number of persons employed. The machinery and the organisation of the works have been gradually improved to such good effect that not only do these sstablisliments supply a largo part of the raw mater ial required by the Italian paper and manufactured wool industries, but they also feed a largo export trade. There are now more than 300 such establishments in Italy, employing some 10,000 workers, mostly women.