Paper Industry in the Kingdom

The Paper Industry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the manufacturing industries in the Kingdom. It encompasses various paper products, including printing paper, newspapers, magazines, paper towels, and cardboard.

The Kingdom is one of the fastest-growing markets in the world for paper products, with a high per capita consumption of paper towels compared to consumers in developed regions like Western Europe and North America.

The Kingdom also led the Arab Gulf countries in cumulative investments in the field of paper products manufacturing for 2015. The value of Saudi investments exceeded USD3 billion, representing 77.5 percent of the total investments of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC) in this sector, as reported by the Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting (GOIC).

The paper products market in the Kingdom was valued at approximately SAR810.9 million, according to statistics released by the Saudi Paper Manufacturing Company for the third quarter of 2019. This marks an increase of SAR52.9 million compared to the third quarter of 2018.

According to the 2019 statistics from the Saudi Paper Manufacturing Company, facial tissues accounted for the largest share of the paper products market in the Kingdom. Their value was estimated at SAR627.9 million in 2019, showing an increase of nearly SAR42 million compared to 2018. Following facial tissues, household tissues were valued at SAR131 million, and toilet rolls at SAR46 million.

The demand for tissues with plastic covers is increasing in the paper products market in the Kingdom, and the size of the market for these tissues was estimated at about SAR369 million in 2019, compared to SAR307.8 million in 2018.

The market size of household tissues also grew from SAR121 million in 2018 to SAR131 million in 2019. The household tissues market is divided into two sections: maxi rolls market, which amounted to about SAR62 million in 2019, with an increase of SAR6.5 million compared to 2018, which reached SAR55.6 million. The second section is the kitchen towel rolls market, estimated at SAR69 million in 2019, compared to about SAR65 million in the previous year.

This growth also affected the toilet tissue market, as it grew from SAR45.7 million in 2018 to SAR46.3 million in 2019, according to statistics issued by the Saudi Paper Manufacturing Company.

Among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, the Kingdom leads in terms of the number of factories operating in the paper and cardboard industry. According to the Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting (GOIC) report for 2015, the Kingdom hosts 206 factories, accounting for approximately 44.9 percent of the total factories in this sector across the GCC countries. The United Arab Emirates follows with 166 factories, representing 36.2 percent, followed by Bahrain with twenty-six factories at a rate of 5.7 percent. Oman has twenty-five factories, constituting 5.4 percent, and Kuwait follows with twenty-one factories at a rate of 4.6 percent. Qatar has fifteen factories, making up 3.3 percent.

Regarding the size of factories, the average investment in a single factory was highest in the Kingdom, reaching about USD14.7 million in 2015. Kuwait followed with an average investment of USD8.53 million, then the United Arab Emirates with USD3.35 million, Oman with USD3.15 million, Qatar with USD2.57 million, and Bahrain with USD0.95 million. Collectively, the average investment in a single factory across the GCC countries stood at USD8.51 million.

To preserve the paper industry's natural resources, mainly trees, some specialized factories recycle paper waste. The paper recycling process has several stages, starting with sorting as paper is separated from the rest of the waste, collected in designated bags or containers, and then transported to recycling facilities.

Numerous factories in the Kingdom are dedicated to paper recycling, including prominent ones such as: The Middle East Paper Manufacturing and Production Company (MEPCO), Waste Collection and Recycling Company Limited (WASCO), Saudi Paper Recycling Company (SRC) which is a subsidiary of the Saudi Paper Group (SPG), Arab Recycling Company, and al-Ghadeer Paper Products Factory.

The number of workers in the paper industry field in the Kingdom reached approximately 32,500 in 2015, constituting 71.5 percent of the total workforce in the sector across the Arab Gulf countries, as reported by the GOIC. Following the Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates had 8,544 workers, accounting for 18.8 percent, then Kuwait with 2,002 workers, comprising 4.4 percent. Bahrain followed with 1,115 workers, representing 2.5 percent, Oman with 771 workers, making up 1.7 percent, and Qatar with 523 workers, accounting for 1.2 percent.

In terms of the average number of workers in one factory, the Kingdom also topped the GCC countries with an average of 158 workers, followed by Kuwait with an average of ninety-five workers, then the United Arab Emirates with an average of fifty-one workers, then Bahrain with an average of forty-three workers, then Qatar with an average of thirty-five workers, and finally Oman with an average of thirty-one workers.