Shortages of Print Paper

There's a shortage of print paper in Portugal at the moment. I picked up this fact from a friend of my wife in the advertisement and publishing business.

The shortage is due to disruptions to the supply of wood pulp from Russia.

The paper industry has been in decline for decades, and only the cheapest suppliers of pulp are still in business. Pulp producers everywhere else have shut down their activities. Forestry in many countries have also been impacted.

This means that only Russia is still in the pulp production business. When sanctions against Russia hit, the supply of this vital raw material stopped.

The effect of this particular sanction was pretty much immediate. Once paper stocks in warehouses was sold out, deliveries stopped.

This illustrates the damage made to businesses by the sanctions. It also highlights the fragility of a global economy dependent on single suppliers. Myopic focus on cost cutting has left an entire industry exposed to shocks of this kind.

What we're also seeing is the likely medium term impact of sanctions against Russia. With paper, the impact came almost over night. However, sanctions against Russian fertilizers will not work its way through the supply chain before this fall. There's a six months delay between fertilizer shortages, and food shortages.

We're currently living in the interim before food shortages kick in.

Gleaners

By Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F004601-0004 / Enzen / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, Link