This would involve newsprint from Canada, Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines and the US, on which the duties were due to expire on Sept 25 this year, chairman Mohd Nasir Ali said in a statement.

Nasir, who is group executive director of Utusan Melayu (M) Bhd, was re-elected chairman during the association's recent AGM.

He said under the current price or cost scenario, there was no significant difference in prices between the producing countries and Malaysia and imports were not going to hurt the local newsprint industry.

“With the increase in transportation rates, electricity tariff, labour costs and other inputs, the anti-dumping duties are an additional burden,” Nasir said.

“Newsprint prices are now hovering from US$900 to US$950 per tonne as against US$680 to US$700 per tonne in the last quarter of 2007,” he said.

Unlike many other industries, the newspaper industry was unable to pass on to its readers the higher cost in the form of surcharges or handling charges, Nasir said.

“Thus, there is new pressure to increase the cover price to mitigate rising production cost which will lower newspaper circulation,” he said.

“The risk of lower circulation is the loss of advertising revenue, what more with advertisers reviewing their expenditure under changed economic circumstances,” he added.

Nasir also said the current scenario was challenging for publishers who were not only face escalating cost and possible drop in circulation but are also adjusting to growing competition from other media platforms, particularly broadcast and digital.

At the AGM, Star Publications (M) Bhd group managing director and chief executive officer Datin Linda Ngiam was re-elected secretary and New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd head of circulation Tasman Harith Ismail was re-elected treasurer. – Bernama

Thursday July 3, 2008

Source: biz.thestar.com.my