Minimum Import Price on Paper

Imagine a foreign paperboard producer able to sell into India at a price below what it actually costs Indian mills to manufacture the same product, not because the foreign producer is genuinely more efficient, but because it's dumping surplus capacity at whatever price clears the excess. A Minimum Import Price, MIP, is the government's blunt but effective response, it simply sets a floor price below which a specific imported product cannot legally clear customs, regardless of what the exporter actually charges.

India applied exactly this tool to virgin multi-layer paperboard in August 2025, fixing an MIP of Rs 67,220 per tonne through March 31, 2026, paired with mandatory registration under the Paper Import Monitoring System, PIMS, which tracks import volumes in real time so the industry and government can watch for renewed surges rather than discovering the damage only after the fact.

The trigger was a genuine, sustained import surge, paper and paperboard imports had roughly doubled over four years, from 1.08 million tonnes in FY21 to 2.05 million tonnes in FY25, with China alone supplying imports that grew 28% in a single quarter of FY26, consolidating its position as India's largest paper import source, prompting the Indian Paper Manufacturers Association to push for both the MIP and a separate anti-dumping investigation into paperboard from Indonesia, which concluded in June 2026 with duties of $261 to $376 per tonne recommended for five years.

The clearest sign this protection is working is in company results, ITC-PSPD, JK Paper and TNPL all reported a jump in profits in Q4 FY25-26, with the MIP's partial relief from import price pressure cited directly alongside moderating wood costs as the reason, exactly the kind of near-term financial impact these trade measures are designed to produce for the domestic industry they protect.