The coated speciality papers manufactured at the Mitsubishi Paper Mills’ German subsidiary Mitsubishi HiTec Paper Europe in Bielefeld, include high-quality thermal papers (thermoscript), digital imaging papers (jetscript), carbonless papers (giroform) and label papers (supercote).

The company said the price rise was prompted by “constantly rising costs, particularly of raw materials”, in a statement released this morning.

The global price increase of 8% applies to all products and takes effect for deliveries from 1 September 2015.

The company said: “Customers will be contacted directly by a representative of the Mitsubishi sales team.”

Mitsubishi’s decision follows the decision to hike prices by Sappi, which announced in May that it would raise prices of its coated fine paper and coated mechanical reels by 8% from 1 July and then made a further announcement that its woodfree coated sheets would also go up by 8% and its woodfree uncoated sheets and reels by 5%-8% a few weeks later.

Sappi blamed “ongoing cost increases allied with present price levels” saying this had led to “unsustainable profitability for this business” at the previous price levels.

Lecta also revealed a 6%-8% price rise on its coated woodfree papers this summer, effective from 1 July. It followed a rise of 5%-7% in price for its speciality papers in April.

It said that the price rise was “essential in order to offset rising manufacturing costs, particularly regarding high prices of raw materials”.