Factors Influencing the Financial Performance of Selected Indian Private Sector Paper Industry

ABSTRACT Paper is more than an industrial product. It is the cultural barometer of the nation. We need paper every day for widening the frontier of our knowledge. The new millennium is going to be the millennium of the knowledge. Paper is one of the significant discoveries that turned the history of the world around. Pulp and paper constitute one of the most important segments of India's industrial economy and is treated as a basic sector. Paper pervades all sectors of our activity from book to bullets and from morning newspaper to nuclear technology. From the time immemorial, paper has played a key role in the evolution of our civilization. The global paper and paperboard industry is dominated by North America, Europe and Asia. Global paper and paperboard production stood at around 380 million tons in 2008, the US leading with over 100 million tons and accounting for nearly a third of the world's production. It is expected to increase to 392 million tonnes by 2010 and 490.0 million tonnes by 2020.