<B>Domestic Paper Production Off for Year</B>

The domestic paper industry, for the most part, has been suffering from a slowing demand this year. Newsprint and tissue production are both showing positive signs for this year, although printing and writing paper, by far the largest segment of the paper industry, is seeing a decline between last year and this year.

According to the American Forest and Paper Association, production of printing and writing paper for October stands at 2.312 million tons, bringing the ten-month total to 22.435 million tons, a 1 percent drop between the two years.

Under the P&W sector, uncoated free sheet production dropped 2 percent; uncoated groundwood dropped 0.4 percent; and coated free sheet production declined 3.6 percent.

As previously noted, U.S. newsprint production continues to post strong numbers this year. For the first ten months production of the commodity stands at 6.179 million tons, a 3.9 percent improvement from last year.

Tissue paper production also posted some improvements this year. According to the AFPA total production of the commodity stands at 605,000 tons in October, pushing the ten-month production total to 4.219 million tons, a 6.5 percent improvement from last year’s figures.