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Show ij Record Is Set . By ffesr o. ProcJuci LTr o.'ii'ng Cut I FiiTiericu. iiistoiy. 3 I A'EU' 5'OKK. Exclusive of news- I print, f.iper and paper products now are ruilins' from American mills at I the highest rate in history, and the I gap between supply and demand in most categories may be closed by j the end of the year. One of the ' major shortages, according to in- ; dustry leaders, appeared to be in ! paper for the book and magazine trade. Chief difficulty in this division was . not to determine supply esti- ! mated to.be about 400.000 tons' greater this year than last but to guess the future demand, since the ! recent hike in OPA wood pulp ceiling ceil-ing prices of about 10 per cent could i work two ways: -j Production might be spurred by I attracting more pulpwood from farm woodlots and adding profit incentive in-centive at the mill level. Cost May Go Higher. But, at the same time, the cost of paper might go to a point where publishers would drop some of their marginal publications and print fewer books. Total U. S. production of paper and paperboard in August was estimated esti-mated at 1,715,710 tons by Dr. Louis T. Stevenson, economist for American Amer-ican Paper and Pulp association. Daily average production was running run-ning about 17 per cent ahead of last year. The industry entered 1946 hoping to produce at a rate of about 18 million mil-lion tons domestically this year. Present production is at a rate of more than 20 million tons a year. Estimates for 1946 have been revised re-vised as follows: Domestic production, produc-tion, 18,620,000 tons; imports, 3,100,-000 3,100,-000 tons; exports, 475,000 tons; giving giv-ing American consumers 21,245,000 tons of paper and paper products. The gap between supply and demand de-mand has been steadily narrowed. One industry source estimated that at the end of June supply was running run-ning one million tons behind demand, de-mand, but the association believes that the gap should be "whittled down to reasonable dimensions by the end of this year." Future Trouble Spots. There are, however, several future fu-ture trouble spots. Swedish pulp, on which American mills have depended in the past to fill the gap between American production pro-duction and American needs, has practically stopped coming in, and the OPA price rise of 10 per cent designed to meet the 10 per cent increase in-crease in the value of the Canadian dollar fell short of meeting a 14 per cent hike in the value of the Swedish krona. The Swedes shipped about 200,000 tons to the United States so far this, year, and Finland 9,000 tons. If the price incentive boosts total domestic production by 6 per cent, loss of the Swedish shipments would be offset. Little more is expected from (Sweden because, American mill owners pointed out, the Swedes can a ell all their pulp in European and South American markets at prices above the American ceiling. Consumers of paper noted with satisfaction that several pulp mills being built in Canada are about ready to start production. |