USA traditionally an important sales market
Imports of products from the EU are subject to punitive tariffs of 20 percent
Koehler Group products affected
Last Wednesday, US President Donald Trump announced a drastic tightening of his economic policy. Imports from the European Union will be subject to surcharges of 20 percent. Economists expect the drastic tariffs to have significant consequences for the USA, Germany and Europe.
The companies in the Koehler Group, including Koehler Paper, produce around 480,000 tons of high-qual- ity specialty paper every year at five locations in Germany. Over 70 percent of the goods are exported to international markets and can be found in numerous applications in people's everyday lives around the world. These include, for example, receipts, playing cards, beverage coasters and packaging. With a pop- ulation of 340 million, the US market is an important sales market for the family-owned company.
The goods are imported into over 120 countries around the world exclusively via local importers. The Koehler Group and its products are affected by import duties. The company's usual delivery conditions stipulate that the importer pays any import duties incurred. It is therefore to be expected that the compa- ny's paper products will become more expensive on the US market by the amount of the import duties. The Koehler Group cannot compensate for the import duties, which must therefore be borne in full by the respective importer. Frank Lendowski, CFO, states: “The US market has traditionally been a major sales market for the Koehler Group, and access to it is important to us. We do not consider the import tariffs imposed by President Trump to protect the domestic economy to be justified and assume that this will have consequences for the global market. It can be assumed that there will be shifts in sales volumes in the coming weeks, not only at the Koehler Group companies, but also in the global paper industry. As an eighth-generation family business, planning reliability is our top priority. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case on the American market, partly due to the experiences of recent months.”
www.koehler.com
