The Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting (GOIC) announced in a report that the cumulative investments in the paper products manufacture reached approximately $3.9bn in 2015, compared to about $2.6bn in 2010, an increase of approximately 49 percent and a CAGR (compound annual growth rate)of 8.3 percent during this period.
Saudi Arabia was ranked first, with cumulative investments reaching more than $3bn or 77.5 percent of the total investments in the GCC paper products industry in 2015. The UAE was ranked second with a share of 14.2 percent, followed by Kuwait (4.6 percent), Oman (2 percent) and then Qatar and Bahrain with smaller percentages.
The report of GOIC’s Gulf Industrial Knowledge Centre (GIKC) revealed that there has been an increase in the number of factories operating in the area of paper industries in the GCC. In fact, there was 459 factories in 2015 compared to 346 in 2010, an increase of approximately 32.7 percent reflecting the surging demand for these products. According to the report, investments in pulp and paperboard doubled between 2010 and 2015, and the manufacture of corrugated paper, containers made of paper or paperboard increased by about 58 percent during the same period of time.
In terms of geographic distribution of factories operating in the field of paper and paperboard products, Saudi Arabia was ranked first with 206 factories forming approximately 44.9 percent of the total factories operating in this field in the GCC, followed by the UAE with 166 factories (36.2 percent) and Bahrain ranked third with 26 factories (5.7 percent).
GOIC’s report underlined the growing labour force in the field of paper and paperboard industries from 30247 workers in 2010 to 45472 workers in 2015, an increase of about 50 percent with a CAGR of 8.5 percent.
The manufacture of other articles of paper and paperboard like hygiene paper, cleansing tissues and other products got the biggest labour force share that counted 26652 workers in 2015, or 58.6 percent of the total labour force in the field of paper products, followed by the manufacture of corrugated paper with a total of 16620 labourers (36.5 percent), and then pulp and paper and paperboard with 2200 workers (4.8 percent).
As to the geographic distribution of the labour force in this field, Saudi Arabia was ranked first with approximately 32517 labourers in 2015 (about 71.5 percent of the total labour force of this field in the Gulf), followed by the UAE with 8544 workers (18.8 percent) and Kuwait with 2002 workers (4.4 percent).
In terms of factories, the average investment per factory was the biggest in Saudi Arabia in 2015 (approximately $14.7m).As for the average investment per factory in the GCC, it totalled $8.51m.
The average number of workers per factory was the highest in Saudi Arabia too with 158 workers, followed by Kuwait (95 workers) and UAE (51 workers).
GOIC’s report also tackled foreign trade in the paper industry. It explained that GCC countries import large quantities of pulp, paper products and paperboard. In fact, GCC imports of these products in 2015 equalled approximately 3.6 million tonnes and amounted to around $3.9bn. Saudi Arabia was ranked first in the GCC in terms of imports (48 percent of the total imports and 47.4 percent of the total value), followed by the UAE (32.4 percent of the total imports and around 32.3 percent of the total value). Thus, the two countries’ share was about 80 percent of the total GCC imports.
Moreover, GCC exports in 2015 reached approximately 939000 tonnes valued at more than $1.3bn. Hence, the net imports amounted to approximately 2.7 million tonnes with a value of about $2.6bn. Saudi Arabia’s share of the total net imports was 43.4 percent, followed by the UAE (32.6 percent) and Kuwait (12.8 percent).
As a matter of fact, in spite of the development of digital media and information networks, paper products and cardboards remain necessary for all aspects of life: Gulf markets are increasingly demanding these products.
Finally, there are several recycling industries in different GCC countries, but this industry faces a number of obstacles hindering its expansion throughout the GCC such as: the absence of large areas necessary to store and collect paper waste, the need for skilled workers and the lack of necessary quantities of paper waste for factories to become operational.
