Graphic Arts Index
Staff -- graphic arts online, 10/1/2001
The nation's paper manufacturers produced 5.7% less product (in unit value terms) this past July than they did during July 2000. Output has now fallen below its year-earlier level in every one of the past 13 months. After falling by 1% between 1999 and 2000, total U.S. paper production through the first seven months of 2001 was 5.7% below the level seen from January through July of last year. Overall capacity utilization in the paper industry has declined in seven of the past nine months, and by July 2001 stood at just 78.1%, or 6.6% below its level of a year earlier. With average paper prices moving generally lower during the past year, the dollar value of U.S. industry output has declined even more sharply.
| Actual Value | Annual % Change | |||||
| Q2/00 | Q1/01 | Q2/01 | 2000 | 2001* | 2002* | |
| Paper Shipments (1) | 43.3 | 40.9 | 39.8 | 8.0 | -7.7 | 3.8 |
| Paper Production (2) | 117.9 | 110.8 | 111.1 | -1.0 | -5.5 | 1.6 |
| Paper Capacity Utilization (3) | 85.9 | 80.1 | 80.2 | -1.5 | -6.1 | 2.9 |
| Transaction Prices (4) | ||||||
| Newsprint | 528.3 | 600.0 | 593.3 | 11.1 | 3.8 | 2.8 |
| Directory, Uncoated Groundwood | 680.0 | 740.0 | 736.7 | 1.8 | 4.9 | 2.4 |
| SC, Uncoated Groundwood | 820.0 | 820.0 | 800.0 | 2.5 | -1.4 | 0.5 |
| Offset, Uncoated Groundwood | 600.0 | 640.0 | 640.0 | 7.4 | 5.0 | 1.6 |
| Offset, Uncoated White, 50-lb. | 726.9 | 750.0 | 706.7 | 14.5 | -3.4 | 3.5 |
| Coated, #1, 70-lb. | 1,640.0 | 1,610.0 | 1,600.0 | 1.3 | -1.8 | 0.7 |
| Coated, #3, 60-lb. | 940.0 | 920.0 | 820.0 | 13.2 | -11.7 | 6.0 |
| Coated, #5, 34-lb. Roto | 1,060.0 | 1,050.0 | 1,050.0 | 7.4 | 0.7 | 3.1 |
| Bond, Uncoated White, #4 | 860.0 | 840.0 | 800.0 | 14.0 | -6.1 | 4.4 |
| (1) Billions of dollars, seasonally adjusted; U.S. Commerce Department (2) Industrial Production Index; 1992=100, seasonally adjusted; Federal Reserve Board (3) Percent of Production Capacity, seasonally adjusted; Federal Reserve Board (4) Dollars per ton; Purchasing magazine's Transaction Price Survey *=Forecast |
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