1. Product Description: Carbon paper is used to copy two or more copies either by using hard pencil, ball pen or typewriter. It is mainly used in offices where there are financial transactions in one way or another or in places where there are no computers and photocopiers.
2. Rationale: The advent of computers, printers and photocopiers had decreased the demand of carbon papers. However, there are still many types of paper works which require the use of carbon papers. All types of activities which involve the transfer of money and other kinds of property require the use of carbon paper for preparing receipts and other associated documents. In our country, still there are many office works which need carbon paper. And this is especially true at the lower levels of the government structures and in areas outside the national and regional capitals. In the private sector, practically all types of money and property transfers require carbon paper for preparing documents which are instrumental for the transfer. This implies that there is a big demand for carbon papers in the country. This demand will continue to exist until such a time that the whole paperwork business is completely done by computers, printers and photo copiers, and that time is relatively far-off in the context of the Ethiopian economy. Until that “time” arrives, we will use carbon papers. And there is a need to produce carbon papers at home.
3. Market Potential:- Four types of carbon papers constitute the largest share of carbon paper consumption. These are one time carbon, typewriter carbon, pencil carbon and special carbon. All the carbon requirement of the country is met by imports and the annual import volume of this product is much greater than the minimum scale production capacity of a carbon paper making plant-which is about 10 million pieces or 108,000 boxes per year. For one-time carbon paper, a small plant had been established near Addis Ababa in the late 1980’s. This plant had a small portion of the domestic market, but it had some quality problems compared to the imported carbon paper. Currently the product of this local plant is not available widely probably indicating some basic problems due to poor quality. Any attempt to produce carbon paper should pay attention to the quality of the product which depends mainly on the level of production technology, quality of raw material and technical know-how of labor.
4. Source of Raw Material: To be imported.
5. Process & Technology: In general preparation of carbon paper involves the following. These are preparation of paper base ink preparation and application of ink on paper. As a base paper or carrier for satisfactory carbon paper, various types of special carbonizing tissues have been developed such as craft and sulfites tissue. Carbonizing tissues are generally available in weights ranging from 4 to 16 pounds per ream. The ink is applied on the tissue paper by a special machine called carbon paper coater. The machine can apply the ink either on one side or both sides as per design. The carbon papers are rolled on chilled rollers and packed.
List of plant and machinery include mixing machine, ball mill, triple roll mill, storage tanks, automatic coating machine, rewinding machine, paper printing machine for back printing, paper cutting machine packing machine, boiler and chilled water plant
6. Estimated Investment:- For a plant which will produce 400 boxes (400 carbon papers in each box) per day, the estimated investment will be the following:
§ Building/Shade 600m2 at Birr 1500/m2 = Birr 900,000
§ Plant and Machinery = Birr 600,000
§ Working Capital = Birr 500,000
2,000,000
7. Benefits:- Saves foreign exchange and regional financial resources, contributes to self-sufficiency, introduces new skills and technology, possibility of export to other part of the country.
8. Location:- Bahir Dar or any Zonal capital preferred by the investor.