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API’s call highlights that the key companies importing newsprint paper from abroad, mainly from the Russian Federation, have announced paper price increase from EUR 620-650 per tonne to EUR 770 per tonne. This will negatively affect the regional magazines, which may go bankrupt in the coming months. The API urges the MPs to provide legislative facilities for such media.
According to Tudor Iascenco, head of the ‘Cuvantul’ regional newspaper of Rezina, ‘Olero’ company, which imports newsprint paper from abroad, mainly from the Russian Federation and Belarus, announced in March that it no longer brings such paper to Moldova. The price of the newsprint paper from Belarus, for instance, reaches now MDL 15.80 per kg as compared to MDL 10.50 – 11 in December 2017. ‘It’s a huge burden. Previously, paper prices had also risen by up to 10%, but that did not influence the publishing power of the newspapers. Today, however, the paper and printing services reach up to 35-40% of the editorial expenses’, Iascenco mentioned.
Tudor Iașcenco, directorul ziarului regional Cuvântul din Rezina. Sursa FOTO: Facebook
He believes that newspaper heads will have to raise newspaper prices, especially when the volume of advertising is decreasing as well. ‘If the subscription cost increases by 20 – 40%, the circulation will dramatically decrease in autumn. Our readers are rural people with poor pensions and salaries. And if we don’t have an acceptable circulation, we’ll lose even the insignificant advertising we have today’, Iascenco said.
The journalist claims that the authorities have done nothing in the last two decades to support the independent press in Moldova, facilitating party-affiliated and political press.
Contacted by Media-azi.md, Oxana Mita, sales manager at ‘Cart Nord’ company, claims that the price increase started in November 2017 and that it has now exceeded 50%.
Mita explained that the prices were increased by the manufacturers. ‘We’ve tried to write letters, to protest, but we were told that these were their conditions. They said they’d changed the price due to the increase in the price of energy resources and cellulose. Actually, all manufacturers periodically raise prices. However, as far as the newsprint paper is concerned, something strange is happening in the last half-year. The new prices scare us too’, Mita said.
‘Cart Nord’ is the official dealer of one of the largest companies in the Russian Federation – ‘Kondopoga’, which also has the highest prices. A tonne of Kondopoga paper for free sale could reach EUR 830 in Moldova, while the Belarusian paper costs EUR 770.
Sergiu Cornetchi, senior consultant of the Parliamentary Committee for Mass-media, said that the Committee had received API’s call and that it was to be discussed within the Parliamentary Group on Improving the Media Law, which would find a viable solution.
