Press ReleasesNippon Paper Industries to Revise Price of Beverage Cartons

Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd.

Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd (Head Office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, President: Yoshio Haga) will revise the price of beverage cartons for milk and cold beverages.

Items to be covered: Beverage cartons centering on NP-PAK
Increase in prices: 10-15%
Timing : For beverage cartons to be delivered on or after April 1, 2014
Reasons:

Imported base paper is the main raw material for beverage cartons. There has been an underlying upward trend in the price of imported base paper, reflecting rising prices of pulp, a key material, and other factors. More recently, imported base paper prices have been rising sharply, given tight supplies worldwide, driven by increasing demand from emerging countries, especially in Asia.

As prices of polyethylene resin, wrapping materials and fuels, etc. are also rising following the recent depreciation of the yen, the profitability of beverage cartons has been severely constrained.

It is difficult to overcome the recent rise in prices of raw materials, particularly those of imported base paper, by cost cutting alone, although we have been endeavoring to do so to date. Therefore, we have concluded that we have no alternative but to pass the higher prices on to product prices and have consequently decided to revise them.