The Yomiuri Shimbun

Cartiere Miliani Fabriano S.p.A. of Italy has for centuries been making top-quality paper products in the town of Fabriano, known as the birthplace of paper in Europe.

In the 30th installment in a series on the world's high-end brands, Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent Kazuki Matsuura interviewed Fabriano Managing Director Franco Agostinello and asked him how the firm has managed to keep the town's 700-year-long tradition of papermaking.

Born in Venice in 1968, Agostinello is a graduate of the University of Trieste. Formerly with major Italian papermaker Burgo, Agostinello was headhunted by the Fedrigoni Group, Fabriano's parent firm, and has served in his current position since 2005.

The Yomiuri Shimbun: What makes Fabriano products so outstanding?

Franco Agostinello: The main difference [between Fabriano and other paper manufacturers] is the pride of working for Fabriano. Every time a Fabriano worker says, "I'm from Fabriano," people reply, "Oh, the city of paper mills." This makes them feel very proud both of living here and of working for such a company.

[Paper] actually spread from Fabriano across the rest of Europe. No other papermaker in Italy has a history, image and tradition of quality comparable with Fabriano's.

Fabriano has always specialized in natural paper that can stand the test of time--it's always been famous for this. Natural paper lasts much longer than glossy paper because it doesn't turn yellow. It stays white and keeps its appearance longer.

We always use select raw materials and cotton fibers and have developed many different types of paper, which guarantees high quality and durability.

Fabriano has always been synonymous with quality, both in Italy and in the rest of the world. This is especially down to the artistic applications for our paper--artists have been using Fabriano paper for centuries because of its high reputation.

But Fabriano is more than this now. This means that the value-paper business has developed immensely--I'm thinking of banknotes, checks, football match tickets, basically any paper that carries a value.

Q: What is the future for the paper industry? Do you think we're heading toward a paperless society?

A: We've been asking ourselves such questions for 20 years now in Europe. The greatest U.S. universities have already invented the electronic newspaper, many luxury hotels offer their customers a newspaper that is first downloaded from the Internet and then "served" on paper.

For us Europeans, reading a broadsheet newspaper on a Sunday morning while enjoying a coffee is part of our culture. So no, we can't really imagine a paperless future.

Figures show that in the past 20 years, the market for paper has grown 4 percent a year. It's the use of paper that might change. But we find it really hard to imagine a paperless world.

I have thousands of photos at home, and my wife wants me to print them because she says that a hard-disk could break and a DVD may get scratched. I print my photos because photos last 100 years on paper. The first document written on cotton paper has lasted at least since 1264. It's still around.

Q: What has been the impact of the global economic crisis?

A: Think of the paper sector in Northern European countries. It's very specialized [in mass production of cellulose paper] and is now in profound crisis. It suffers from competition from other parts of the world that use the same technology, and must bring enormous volumes to the market. At the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009, such industries have been hardest-hit in the whole paper sector. In Europe, all paper factories had to halt their machinery and reduce production by 20 percent to 30 percent.

The market for Fabriano paper is much more of a niche. What matters to our customers is quality, service and brand. Those who buy Fabriano tend to keep buying Fabriano. More than half of our business is in standard Fabriano paper, a sector that has no more than six competitors worldwide.

As for commodity paper, which accounts for the remaining 50 percent of our business, our production is smaller than [that of] most of our competitors, which results in minimal inventory fluctuations during periods of crisis.

Q: What's the image you have of Japan and Japanese people?

A: The image I have, and that we generally have here in Europe, is pretty complex. An image of top-notch technology, great efficiency, high-speed trains, the Toyota and Sony model, work ethic, national pride, willingness to grow constantly and be No. 1. Besides this, there's a more varied image of Japanese culture: religion, sense of beauty, an artistic tradition that is different from our own but is every bit as good if not superior.

In Japan, we don't have a high turnover, but we are present in niche markets, especially with white papers, as well as with the traditional Fabriano papers.

[Some] people simply love the feel of cotton fiber paper, which has an irregular surface and makes the writing experience quite peculiar. This is particularly true in Southeast Asia, where Fabriano has enjoyed a tenfold increase in the banknote and value-paper market in the last years.

Q: Where do you see Fabriano 100 years from now?

A: We imagine Fabriano still having its plants in Fabriano because the Fabriano brand, the Fabriano-paper association, belongs to this city. It's a great advantage, comparable to having a big city in Japan that's called Toyota. The connection between Fabriano and paper is broad and deeply rooted in history. I believe 100 years from now, there will still be paper production in Fabriano.