The rises will not be welcome by hard pressed printers, who will be faced with adding 3-5 per cent to the total cost of a printed job, and then trying to pass that cost on to customers.

However the rapidly declining dollar has left merchants with no room to manoeuvre, with the cost of the orders they are placing now for July delivery reflecting the new value of the local currency on the international market. Further interest rate cuts advocated by much of Australian business will only exacerbate the dollar’s decline.

Tony Bertrand, marketing and business development manager at BJ Ball says, “We will be notifying printers of rises in the next few weeks, and those rises will come through by the end of next month.”

Simon Doggett, managing director of KW Doggett says, “Unfortunately the Australian dollar, which has to some extent shielded Australian printers from rises in recent times, is now trending downwards and no merchant can afford to absorb rising prices.”

Rohan Dean form Spicers says, “We haven’t worked through the exact price increases yet but there is no doubt that for many stocks they will be in the 8-12 per cent vicinity.”

The merchants also say that mills, particularly in Asia but also in Europe, are raising their prices, and that inflationary pressures such as soaring power and fuel costs, as well as the upcoming carbon tax are all having an adverse effect on paper prices.

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