Paper Prices Have Almost Doubled In Belarus Since March

Current paper prices.

Since March, prices for office paper of the A4 format in Belarus have almost doubled, causing even a rush demand for a while.

Intex-press visited five shops in Baranavichy and saw if A4 paper was available and at what prices it could be bought.

At the end of April, office paper was available in all the outlets we visited, but the prices for it in different stores differed significantly.

In one of the bookstores in the city center, a pack of the Xerox Performer office paper was sold for 50 rubles, while in other stores, its price ranged from 33 to 35 rubles.

Prices for the popular Russian-made paper Snegurochka also vary: now it costs from 36 to 39 rubles. The Russian paper "Maestro Standart" is sold for 35 rubles. The Office Copy, Polish printing paper, you can buy for 39 rubles.

There are also novelties of the “not clear white paper”: stores now sell a new type of ivory office paper “SvetoCopy ECO”. It is made without the use of chemicals for bleaching and costs from 30 rubles.

"At the beginning of March, of course, there was a rush, the large batches of paper were instantly scattered. There were problems with the deliveries. But now office paper is available, there is no shortage of it, you can buy it without any problems," said the seller of one of the stores.

According to her, now the price of paper has already begun to decline, but it remains high. If in January a pack of popular Russian paper was sold for 18 rubles, at the beginning of March it cost 60!

But Belarusian-made paper is available only in the stores of Belsauzdruk. By the way, it turned out to be the cheapest. A pack of 500 A4 sheets costs 13 rubles.

“Such paper is purchased reluctantly, buyers say that it is worse in quality,” a shop seller admitted. "But there were no problems with its supplies."

The shortage of office paper and its rise in price happened in early March in Russia, after the imposture of Western sanctions. It turned out that Russian enterprises do not produce paper bleaches. Office paper was mainly imported from Russia and Europe in our country. Cost increase and its shortage in Russia, and also the sharp growth of currency exchange rates, influenced the cost of paper and in Belarus.