Tissue World Magazine | Fisher International
TISSUE WORLD LATIN AMERICA 2023-2024: ECONOMIC HEADWINDS IMPACT TISSUE CONSUMPTION GROWTH Changing fib e prices, exchange rates, and environmental regulations present some participants advantages, new challenges, as well as opportunities. Report by Bruce Janda, Senior Consultant, Fisher International.
L
atin America is defined mo e by a shared Latin culture than strict geographical boundaries. In our previous column for the Nov/Dec TWM, our focus was directed towards Brazil as the singular Portuguese-speaking section. This leaves a predominantly Spanish speaking range from Mexico in North America to Chile, facing Antarctica for purposes of this report. Several smaller countries use French, Dutch, or English as their official languages. It s essential to note that Hispanic culture is not uniform, with significant variations in food, music, and societa aspects across countries. All of these factors should be expected to influence tissue demand Figure 1 shows a map of the Americas with a heatmap for Latin American tissue production. Brazil was included on the map as a reference to the previous report. Mexico and Brazil, coloured red, show as the largest producers, followed by Colombia and Argentina. Figure 7 also shows Latin American tissue production in a pie chart, ranking the relative production volumes without Brazil. Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad & Tobago are identified tissue p oducers in the ResourceWise database. Given the many small islands, determining the countries included in Latin America for economic and trade statistics poses a challenge. A comprehensive overview of economic indicators influencing or impedin the development of tissue consumption is depicted in Figure 2, showcasing the trend in Latin American population and GDP growth.
12 | Jan/Feb
TW24-JF.indb 12
Excluding Brazil, the Latin American population exceeds that of Brazil by more than twice. The blue line representing the average GDP per capita shows significant disruptions during the Covid-19 pandemic While the average consumer purchasing power aligns with Brazil’s, this average hides a lot of variation in income levels. Climate change affecting agriculture combined with economic and political disruption has driven migration to North America, resulting in instability that continues to frustrate tissue consumption development. The economic headwinds on tissue consumption growth are shown in Figure 2. The average unemployment trend appears reasonable but hides several significant outliers. The average inflati peaked at 2,100% in 2018 and is arithmetically correct, but the massive impact of several countries’ runaway inflation distorts the average. Any tissue demand stud must consider the different consumer conditions in neighbouring countries. These regional averages offer limited guidance, so the individual country’s economic statistics are also shown in Table 1. The FisherSolve economic and trade databases encompass the Latin American countries featured in the report, with the exception of Cuba. Although tissue production data for Cuba is available in other sections of this report, the economic data is taken from the World Factbook (www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/ countries/cuba/). The five-year compound annua growth rate (CAGR) is included for both income and population growth.
www.tissueworldmagazine.com
12/01/2024 20:18
