Romania’s corrugated packaging market is still growing.

Its domestic paper production is not.

In the first half of 2026, Romanian corrugated-board demand increased approximately 0.5% to 235,192 tonnes, while domestic production of paper used for corrugated board fell by more than 6% to 240,277 tonnes.

That divergence is the most important number in ROMPAP’s latest warning.

The Romanian Pulp and Paper Industry Association argues that the country’s mills are being squeezed simultaneously by:

high energy costs,

rising import competition,

and difficulty retaining enough recovered paper within the domestic market.

The result is an unusual situation:

Romania has packaging demand, installed papermaking capacity and large volumes of recyclable fibre—but domestic production is still losing ground.

Energy is becoming a direct competitiveness issue

Paper production is highly energy intensive.

According to ROMPAP, energy typically represents around 25–30% of paper production costs and can reach as much as 35%.

That means electricity and gas volatility can quickly change whether a Romanian mill can compete with imported paper.

ROMPAP is therefore asking the government for measures including stronger compensation for indirect carbon costs and mechanisms to reduce energy-price volatility.

The association’s argument is not simply that electricity is expensive.

It is that Romanian mills compete against producers operating under different energy structures and national support schemes.

When the underlying product is relatively standardized containerboard, even a modest cost disadvantage can affect where converters source their tonnes.

Romania also exports the raw material its mills need

The recovered-paper situation makes the problem more complicated.

Around 94% of the raw material used for Romanian corrugated-case paper production comes from recovered paper and board, according to ROMPAP.

Yet more than 30% of recovered paper collected in Romania is reportedly exported.

Exports increased from approximately 169,000 tonnes in 2022 to 250,000 tonnes in 2025.

That is roughly a 48% increase in three years.

From a free-market perspective, exporters naturally sell recovered fibre where they receive the best price.

But from the mill’s perspective, this creates a circular-economy contradiction.

Romania collects recyclable fibre.

That fibre leaves the country.

Romanian mills then face tighter access to raw material while imported finished paper competes in their domestic market.

This is why ROMPAP is arguing that circularity should be measured not only by how much material is collected, but also by how much is actually recycled into new products inside Romania.

Collection alone does not create industrial circularity

That distinction is important.

A country can report a high collection rate while exporting much of the collected material.

Environmentally, that fibre may still be recycled somewhere else.

Industrially, however, the value creation moves with it.

Domestic recycling creates demand for:

sorting,

transport,

paper mills,

energy,

maintenance,

and downstream converting.

Exporting recovered paper preserves some of the collection value but loses much of the manufacturing value that can be generated when that fibre becomes new paper or board.

ROMPAP is therefore calling for incentives that reward material actually recycled domestically and mechanisms that could give Romanian mills better access to locally collected paper.

Such proposals would have to fit EU internal-market and waste-shipment rules, so the eventual policy mechanism matters considerably.

Imports are filling part of the gap

ROMPAP President Paul-Henri Kohler says the packaging market is stabilizing while Romanian production is losing share.

Earlier in 2026, he also highlighted growing pressure from imported paper, including competition from Turkey.

The important distinction is that imports are not automatically evidence of unfair competition.

They may reflect:

lower production costs,

energy differences,

currency movements,

available capacity,

or customer preferences.

But when domestic demand grows slightly while local output drops more than 6%, it is reasonable to ask whether more of that demand is increasingly being met from outside Romania.

That is the market-share issue ROMPAP wants policymakers to examine.

The industry says it has already invested

This is not a sector asking for support without putting capital at risk.

ROMPAP says Romanian paper and board companies have invested more than €200 million during the past two to three years, including projects involving:

energy efficiency,

renewable energy,

biogas,

and emissions reduction.

The association has 19 members representing around €1 billion in annual turnover and approximately 5,000 employees.

That makes the present debate as much about preserving future investment as protecting current output.

A mill deciding whether to modernize a boiler, paper machine or energy system has to believe it can operate competitively for the next decade—not simply survive the next energy-price spike.

Romania’s real problem is not lack of circular material

This is what makes the situation particularly interesting.

Many countries struggle because they lack:

recycling infrastructure,

domestic mills,

or sufficient recovered fibre.

Romania appears to have meaningful quantities of all three.

The challenge is keeping the economics aligned.

If energy makes domestic papermaking expensive while recovered fibre flows to foreign buyers, local mills can lose competitiveness even as domestic packaging demand remains relatively stable.

That is why ROMPAP’s latest warning should not be read simply as another request for industrial support.

It exposes a broader circular-economy question:

Does collecting recovered paper create the greatest economic value if the fibre is exported, or if competitive domestic mills can turn it back into packaging locally?

Romania already has much of the physical infrastructure needed for the second model.

The harder part is making the economics work.

Last Updated on 22/09/2026 by Jota Machinery