Hello and welcome. Good morning. It is a big pleasure to be here to kickstart Klabin Day 2024. First, let me introduce myself to you. I'm Patrícia Paes , and I'm happy to be able to host you this morning. Thank you so very much for joining us, and I also want to thank the audience who's with us online, live on YouTube. We have live translation into English for those of you who need it, and before we start, let me say a few things. Safety is a non-negotiable value here at Klabin, so for those of you who are here with us in person, I'd like to remind you that we have emergency exits at the back of the room to the left, and our team will be here to support you in any situation.
Like in every other year, this is when we revisit our year and show you what our prospects are for the next cycle. Today, we're going to be welcoming Cristiano Teixeira, our General Director, who will be telling us more about Klabin's irreplicable business model. And then we're going to have Gabriela Woge, our CFO, who will be talking about financial discipline here at Klabin. And finally, Cristiano will tell us more about the pillars that we use to generate value at our company. At the end of these presentations, we're going to have time for a Q&A with company executives. For those of you with us in person, we can take a microphone to you. But if you're connected with us online on YouTube, you can send your questions by scanning the QR code that you see on your screen.
Please remember to identify yourself when sending a question. To officially launch our agenda, I invite to the stage Cristiano Teixeira and Gabriela Woge. With that, I hand it over to Cristiano. Well, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Let me see if I can get the slides to move. Well, I'd like to start by talking a little bit about our succession line. I always say that, at least this is something that I've done recently, because we have had C-levels either retiring or moving, and we want to always be transparent in the changes we have in our company. Of course, there is a limit to this, but I don't think we have ever had any confidential process in that sense.
It is important to say because we are Klabin's employees like any other, and we know that to keep a strong culture, we need to keep training people. I have the privilege of meeting people who were able to go through all different areas of the company, like myself, which is important. But now I wanted to show you Marcos, who now is also moving to other areas of the company. So he can reach the business role like Douglas and others coming from finance, but learning more about a business to really take on a business role. He is very young, and we're now preparing him for this new moment in his career. And he's going to be taught by a brilliant mentor, someone I've known for more than 40 years.
This person will be training Marcos for as long as he needs, and Klabin is happy to count on José to do so. We have Gabriela Woge, who joined us three years ago. She was hired to take on this role. She is young but widely experienced, and she has had an amazing journey here at Klabin. This was a very important year for her because she was able to raise $10 billion in capital. We were able to change our debt structure significantly. We were able to reduce our debt in dollar and also extend the payment timeline. This year was the first time that Gabriela made the budget on her own, much better than that of Marcos Ivo. It is a privilege to count on these people who are being trained by different areas because this is very important for our business.
I've been asking the communications team to put more photos of our plants and products on our slides. And not because we don't want to have the trees on our slides, but because sometimes we try to show how complex our company is in terms of processes and technologies. And when showing you only beautiful photos of trees, that might not be the case. Especially because sometimes we might be biased thinking that, well, it's only planting trees and that's it for paper and pulp, but that's not it, right? We also have many industrial processes that are involved here. But I'd like to start by touching on an important topic. What gets us to stand out from the competition?
I know that a lot of that we will cover here may sound just like, I don't know, a narrative for you, but you might have seen some of the videos and interviews that I've recorded discussing pines, pine trees, and at Klabin, 57% actually of the wood that we use is pine in the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina, but I have to remind you that the states that are the largest producers of pine are precisely these two. Because this is the best area for that tree type, and it's important for us to touch on that because pine trees, they have some advantages that we will cover later, but let's start by showing why no one can mimic what we do. Because eucalyptus is, of course, a tree type that we use at our company.
But we know that due to Brazilian geography, you can't plant eucalyptus in other parts of Brazil. The same thing is not true for pine. And when we talk about our product portfolio, as you will see in the next slide, we'll always be close to products that need to be moisture-resistant that only pine can offer. I'm not here to criticize fiber-to-fiber processes. And I want to reemphasize that because, as you know, Klabin was the company that first introduced eucalyptus into kraftliner and then was able to develop a full eucalyptus product. In any case, we're always pushing the limits of what we can do in fiber-to-fiber processes. But it's also important for us to have the option of using softwood as well so that we can produce a very comprehensive line of products, for example, those that are used in milk and beer as well.
That requires softwood fiber. These are assets that make us very competitive in terms of price as well. Of course, since we operate in the state with the highest productivity, we get good rainfall there, more than other states. We do not need to irrigate our forestry areas. Because, as I mentioned before, we have regular rainfall across the year in a very productive area, which makes all the difference. I know that when we talk about sustainability, sometimes things seem intangible, and many people have lost interest. To us, sustainability is not the only thing. Yes, we have always discussed the fact that sustainability is part of our DNA. At first, it was actually hard for us to really emphasize sustainability because this is everyday business for us. We're always talking about sapling mortality and rainfall rates.
We know how many millimeters of rainfall we have at the city of Paraná today, and that comes with a price, right? We know that changing stock from one place to the other due to operational safety may add some hardships, but on the other hand, I don't need to irrigate, and therefore we have a higher survival rate for our saplings, so yes, I can therefore have a more comprehensive portfolio of products now that I work with softwood as well. We work in the best geography possible for softwood forestry, and Klabin today is definitely among the top three countries that invest softwood fibers in their research and development efforts. This is important for us when we think about the amount of assets needed for each new plant, and here, I mean wood, and one more thing: here we'll also be discussing asset value here at Klabin.
We always try to convince you of the fact that if I only look at Klabin's productive areas and I think about the average negotiation price, I believe, actually, I know that the valuation of the company, our market cap, is not enough to even buy the land that we're in. I've told you that many, many times before. Because sometimes it's hard for us to find recognition on the assets that we already have. We will try to show you these numbers a bit better throughout today's slides. We will show you some examples in which we use third-party woods, and then at some point, we bought areas near our plants, and we were able to get more cost-effective operations due to the reduced distance, and saw that if you look at share prices before and after these changes, the company's share prices have remained the same.
As if we were not even mitigating risk. Meaning, I have all the risk of buying fibers from far places and all the operational risks there. And then little by little, I buy land closer to our plants at a cheaper price. I sell land that was further from our plants. And we're going to talk a lot about land because it is important for us to have the expertise at home on land trading. And we will show you the numbers because we're not afraid of sharing that with you. To the contrary, we believe that this is actually one of our assets. But we see that the risk perception has not changed. We went from third-party wood to self-wood. We reduced the distance from our forestry land and our plants, and share price has remained the same.
We can discuss why that is the case because it is hard to understand. Now, let me tell you a little bit more about our product portfolio. And here, softwood plays an important role. Well, you know that we talk a lot about our business model. Eight, nine years ago, when we first designed our strategic plan, and you will see we'll talk a lot about our investment cycles here, we decided to split the company into 3/3 because we wanted to reduce volatility and to also work in some niche markets that had higher price per ton. And this was openly discussed with you and was executed with no risk to the company. I mean, of course, there was always some risks in implementing a new project, but everything was done within the timeframe that was established early on.
I know that we're not here to audit investments halfway through, given the fact that these are investments that will reap fruits for 50, 60 years. In any case, all the capital that was invested, with no exception, so all the investments that we made are better now than they were when we first suggested these changes. This is the company today, and we use revenue as our main metrics. As you can see, we are market leaders in many markets in which we operate, especially here in Brazil. We are also building a closer relationship with end users, meaning known brands, especially brands that are known not only in Brazil, but globally as well. We focus a lot on food-grade products and hygiene, cleaning, as well as civil construction.
Just by looking at this slide, you can see that these products, they're not printed by Klabin. If you look at these, some can be done by us for end users, especially in packaging, but not all. The others require us to have a close relationship with big brands in Brazil and globally. If you want to understand Klabin, first you have to look at the supermarket near you and the average consuming ticket. Because if we perform well in markets such as beer and milk, this is incredibly relevant. As you can see, I won't be able to go through all the products because we have many of those here. What I wanted to say is that many of these products, especially those made out of softwood, they are important to our portfolio.
Yes, sure, we continue to use hardwood as well, but we can now make products that would not be possible if we only worked with hardwood. Diapers, for example, are a good product that we can offer to our customers. I can talk to a customer that we have a softwood diaper within 30% to 40% of hardwood if needed. The customer chooses, and then that's given to them ready. They don't have the customer, I mean, don't have to change the fiber in any way because you're going to have a balanced mix, and the customer doesn't have to do that in their own plant. So the fluff market in Brazil is so much in vogue, and it definitely depends on the softwood to make it happen.
The beer market, that of course has its peaks and valleys, but basically we are already certified in all the biggest companies in the world to work with our product, of course, for their packaging. This is all to tell you that, historically speaking, Klabin is, of course, well-renowned in all the commodities and companies in the sector, in the food and beverage sector. This is a rather linear perspective. I just wanted to make sure that this is in line with you. Having this forest with more than 50% of trees of softwood, and even though we do use hardwood if necessary, and it is going to be available, usually the majority of the products are going to be contracted with softwood.
And I don't want to mention the biggest names here, but we do have contracts with the largest companies in the food and beverage sector. And at least two-thirds of the company are considering the margins within inflation, plus, of course, an extra. So the stability level is pretty consistent. This is how Klabin has been developed. We want it to be where we are. That's not to say that we are not going to change that in the future depending on the investments. But we really wanted to go through a stability and cash flow generation period. It's an ideal moment. So this is why I will ask you to bear in mind these products, the market that we are currently working on.
It's important to bear in mind as well that 70% of our cardboard customers have contracts with us that have terms for three to five years, considering already fluctuations with inflation. Now let's change gears a little bit. We already know that people is one of the most important factors. Of course, the industry of paper and pulp goes along the same way. We are in a sector that definitely needs this experience, this knowledge to add more value because we are dealing with processes that are often 20, 30 years long. We know that oftentimes we are talking about the processes that are only going to be actually coming to fruition in the next generation.
So the biggest plans for paper and pulp were designed by thinkers or executives from a generation before us, and we are now working for the generation that's coming after us. So this discussion about capital allocation is really a short-term process. If I am an executive of the company and I am designing or preparing the company for the next 10 or 15 years, I need to be taking into account what is the competitiveness of our fibers, of our wood for all the different sectors. That's why we need to work alongside consumer goods consultancies to understand what are the trends and where is the market going to. And it sounds like a very crazy, rather crazy discussion, but that's the truth.
If we consider the data about the market, about income in the country, and I am not even talking about the mainstream countries, the countries that we go for leisure time. We are talking about our focus countries, which are mainly the emerging countries, right? And obviously bring enormous possibilities. We're talking about India, the African continent, as well as Latin America. And we know that there are some countries that are still going through this process of recycled fiber, recycled wood. And that's true because this is what happens for the next 30-year cycle. And we know that there are no alternative ways to consume that product on the other end of the process. That's why we always have to consider the long term. And I am not even talking about strategy yet. I'm still going to get there.
So, specifically talking about capital, we need to consider, okay, what's the value of the current value of my share, the inflation, interest rates on those countries. And of course, it has to be considered by the entire steering committee. We even have our CEO representing our board here with us today. And we have to discuss that without any preconcept or preconceived concepts. So you remember, and we are here to talk about controversial issues as well. You guys remember that Figueira 's investment was quite controversial, right? But Figueira was paramount to our business. And I remember saying that at the last Klabin Day as well. Because the investment in packaging material, especially considering consumer goods, where, of course, we have to consider the inflation, where the BRL per ton is now lower than it was, we know that that investment is going to protect our ROIC.
So hopefully, this discussion today is going to be very free and open-minded. As we did for Figueira, we already know that that was a protection to our ROIC of our machine number 27, right? So if I did not have that new factory there, I would have to get all that paper from the Machine 27. I could not convert our own packaging, and we will have to sell the paper. So you know that already. You know that even better than we do. If I had to sell that directly to the market, I would have to be fighting for our contract, considering the tariff hike, as well as competitiveness in many other countries, with many other countries in the world. And we are also going to be talking about the cost per carton. Even for the exports, we have that covered already.
We usually say that we at Klabin are the last ones to fall because our cost is the best one. This is the reality that we've had last year. This is the reality that many companies that are so well-known in the market, and they are now losing business. They are having to close down factories or shut down factories. At Klabin, we have the most competitive equipment in the world, and we don't even have to export the paper at very low prices, considering the kraftliner we're talking about for $30 to $80 per ton. We can actually transfer that paper to our packaging material. We can sell that at a higher price. If you get the data that we have in terms of revenue, we are talking about more than $100,000.
And we can transfer this product to another area with a CapEx per ton that is way lower to stabilize our results. Because, of course, the negotiation of this product is by inflation. We can increase our productivity, therefore stabilizing our cash flow. So I wanted to bring that up again because currently many companies in the sector are considering exactly that, this debate that we started 10, 15 years ago. And this is how we look at that, about capital. And we have already discussed that. Okay. So we considered all the scenarios. Okay, what if we have to export? What if we have to convert it? And this is how we protect the ROIC. So why not just rebuy the shares? As you know, the executives are not there to just buy the shares again. Otherwise, they would be working at the financial capital.
Our role here is to bring more differentiation. We got to look at the opportunities and see them where usually other people are not there. We can only be opportunistic about it if we have to rebuy the shares, but we have to consider the next 50 years of the company. If we really want to generate yield for the shareholders, then we are going to go over here, and if not, we can go other ways, thinking about the purchase of the shares again. Okay? And this is something we can discuss. I'm not going to say that we are not going to do it, but this is not majorly what we have to do here. Now, here we're talking about our strategy when it comes to leveraging. As you know, Klabin is always looking for investments that are at least three to four points over our capital costs.
We are very straightforward when it comes to that. And even in this process, and I am going to tell you a little bit more about that. But again, we are in a moment to decrease our debt. And we have already made our peace with that. We actually know how to work with it. And we always have to pay our shares to the shareholders, of course. As you already know, this is one of our goals. This is something that we always want to do. We need to give this objective very clear, this goal very clear to all the shareholders because we always want to pay our dividends in a very stable way. Now, again, we have already talked about the returns on our investments, always considering, if necessary, this leveraging, but we focus on anything with a WACC that is greater than four points.
I think that's all, right? Okay. Next slide. So how is the company right now? I really like the slides because they help me keep things in mind and also to keep on track. Let's talk about our current moment at the company. We have just been through one investment cycle, and I will let you know about the main investments that we have over the last few years. This is the trajectory that we have followed with high execution risk. Now we are over it. The investments are already up and running. I will let you know a little bit about the volume that we are forecasting for the near future. Now we are focused mainly on what we call harvest phase or the deleveraging. We are still a growth company, okay?
I have just told you about the long-term growth plan for our company. But Klabin is not just seeing the competitiveness of the cost of the fibers. It is mainly located here in Brazil. We could talk about all Latin America, but specifically here in Brazil, we already have a couple million tons that we can structure in a very consistent way with the best cost in the world as a global reference. And our goal is to take it to other countries in the world to work with the conversion outside of Brazil. So this long-term overview can still be discussed, but in the moment, do we have any new investments in the pipeline? Well, the answer is no.
But currently, we can assure you that, considering that we no longer have the execution risk, that all the hardships, all the struggle that we have to buy the third-party wood is already something that we have worked even for Arauco. Maybe we already have the asset that is available, and it is probably the most strategic and most valuable one in the world with a large area of pine forests pretty close to the company. And this is something that's already there. It's already operational. So now we are going to talk about the free cash flow generation. And just as I told you that it is kind of complicated for us to understand how the values of the share of the company cannot even buy our own land, which is our asset.
And I have to say that there's probably three likewise assets here in Brazil, considering, of course, its value over time. If you consider the value of the productive land in that region, we're talking about mainly Paraná, São Paulo, and Santa Catarina, okay? And I am not talking about lands in the Central West region or in the Northeast area, which, of course, are areas with completely different regulations, framework, and different sustainability practices. And of course, I am not talking that it is in detriment to the region, but of course, it is something that is in better conditions here in that region, in the South and Southeast region of Brazil. We are talking about land that is mainly noble, and we can even buy and sell with 30% or 40% gains over this transaction.
When we scan that land to see what it could be used for, and this is a technology that we already have, and I only know a handful of companies in Brazil who tried to do that. Of course, I'm not here to tell you that we are better than them, but Klabin is one of the very few companies in Brazil that actually have the know-how to do that, to assess the potential of the land. Of course, here in Brazil, we are a reference for the entire region of Latin America, and we are really good at assessing how much it's going to cost. Our team here at Klabin is benchmarking in the entire market. We know our land. We know how to execute large investments in a very organic way, and we can buy companies and bring more synergies to the company.
As an example, the assets that we have purchased from International Paper. We could be telling you about M&A, and we bought this company with 4,000 employees. So we're talking about a company with financial tools that are modern via partnerships, improving our ROIC, because we know all these leverages, all these attributes that we can use in a very unique way in the world, and that allowed us to get to a deleveraging moment, of course, respecting the payment of dividends because we have this strong commitment to our shareholders, and as you can see here in this roadmap, we have a document that has been created in 2017, actually. It was already made official, and you can see that in the next 10 years, we have already mapped a long time ago, so now this is, I think, the key messages that I wanted to tell you.
Of course, we are going to have a Q&A moment, and now I give the word to Gabi so she can tell us not only about our businesses and other attributes. I will be back with you to make sure that I was able to convey the message.
Thank you, Chris. Good morning, everyone. First, I want to publicly thank Cristiano for the opportunity to be here with you today. I am very, very proud of that. I also want to thank Marcos for this transition period. I know it was long, but you've helped me greatly in preparing to be here today. Again, as I said, it's an honor to be here, but I know that replacing Marcos will be a huge challenge. Let me start by telling you a bit more about our financial discipline. We are actually responding to your feedback.
You've always asked us about our cost structure, and now we have a guidance with our total cash flow cost so that we can show you what our cost is for our products in total, and here you can see the historic average since 2023, showing you how disciplined we have been in managing costs. In the bar chart, you can see not only our forecast for 2025, and I will drill down into that later on, but also numbers from 2026, meaning the best forecast we have today for our cost next year, and in this period, 2023 to 2026, you can see that the interest rate total is 14%, and if we put that into our cost structure, we should be now at BRL 3,600 per ton, and as you can see, we have been able to keep our costs stable, and actually, any increase is below inflation.
Where does that come from? Let me tell you more about the numbers from 2025. We know that we have very few days before the year is over. As you know, in the fourth quarter, we had the longest downtime in one of our plants. This was actually done brilliantly with our team, keeping costs and time within our plan, which is very important for our results. Overall, in 2025, and across our quarterly meetings, we've always told you how challenging this year was for Klabin, but not Klabin alone, but for the globe. This was a year filled with the uncertainties, many complexities, many challenges, but we were very quick to adapt to a new context and look for initiatives that would, again, bring us back into the cost control that we have set forth to do.
In the first quarter of the year, we had some production issues that impacted how much pulp we had available. And then we launched initiatives to compensate for the production loss. And we are happy to tell you now that we have normalized the production levels and have recovered amounts throughout the year, therefore leading to positive results, as you will see today. But we are also facing climate issues, inflation, a new role when it comes to inflation, interest rates, and exchange rates. And this is something that impacted both our fixed and variable costs, but we were able to launch initiatives to keep us within our guidance. As Cristiano mentioned earlier, we also talked to you about the Caetê Project and the Planalto Project , meaning the company has been selling land, which is important to our financial results.
We have a very detailed plan ahead of us as well. We're here to share information as transparently as possible. We always put that into our cash flow cost numbers. The number in 2025 means BRL 70 per ton. When combined with all the other initiatives, this is what allowed us to keep the costs where you see them. What do we expect for 2026? We hope costs to remain stable. We are a very robust company, and we're looking for initiatives that can compensate for inflation when it comes to our cost structure. In 2026, as you know, we will continue to grow in sales volume, and Cristiano will talk more about that later. This is what we expect to see from the investments we have had, and that will be ramped up in 2026 and 2027 for better results.
In 2025, as we have already talked, we had some downtime in Monte Alegre, but not in our second largest plant. In 2026, it will be the other way around. We will have some downtime in Monte Alegre plant in the first quarter of 2026, but no downtime in Ortigueira, which is also something that will help to increase volume throughout the year, also reducing maintenance costs for sure. With a ramp-up, and this is publicly available, you will see that in all our results, but the ramp-up plus the net effect of these two downtimes represents 80,000 tons of production, the reduction of production when compared to 2025, which will help us to dilute costs overall. We know that we also face different challenges in terms of shipment, labor, inflation, fiber cost.
And when we look at that internally, we, of course, need to find more initiatives that can offset these growing costs so that at the end of the day, we can continue to keep our costs stable. We hope to have proven to you that we are able to do that, and we have been able to mitigate rising costs. Just like we were very successful in doing so in 2025, we are sure to repeat the same results in 2026. Now, let's look at our investment structure. Sorry, another piece of good news is the following. Not only are we very disciplined in how we control costs, but we also have great predictability in the investment execution, which has also translated into meeting the forecasts and budgets that we send to the market, to you.
Here you can see our guidance for the past few years, as is the case with the previous slide. We've been keeping track of these metrics since 2023. As you can see, we have reduced investments because we are now reaping the fruit of previous investments. We are not expanding capacity any longer. This is something that we did at a previous stage. Now we are moving into the following stage where we want to see some stability in investment amounts so that we can continue to have a strong culture. Also, we will look into our operation cost for forestry, and we have no expansion investments in our pipeline right now. If you look at 2025 and 2026, our guidance for 2025 was BRL 3.3 billion invested, and we believe that we will end the year below that number.
We are close to BRL 2.9 billion. Part of those investments, they will be done in 2026. So we expect 2026 to amount to BRL 3.3 billion. And this is what is usually expected because this is the investment we had in previous years. It might be the case for future years as well. But basically, this number has been brought down, and you will see that this is going to be a way for us to leverage and increase the cash flow and free cash flow in the company. Here, I would like to raise an important point. Yesterday, we launched a publication with some of the measures taken by the company to benefit our shareholders. And we know that we have a new PL 2337 , that might change how dividends are paid.
To mitigate it, our company has issued what we call interim dividend statement at BRL 1.1 billion. This is done based on the accumulated profit in 2025. This is something we are going to be splitting through 2026. It represents 18 cents per share or 91 cents per unit. How does that work? Shareholders who will be giving these dividends, they need to be in a base until next year, the 16th of December, because after that day, our shares will be traded differently in 2026. The second initiative was to pay a bonus due to an increase in capital. This bonus will amount to BRL 0.8 billion, and we're going to use the reserves from the company. We can also offer one new share per 100 shares. We want to increase our base in 1%.
We will be issuing new shares, 1% of new shares. And those who can receive the bonus, they have to be part of the base until the 17th of December. And these shares will be traded without this right starting on the 18th, meaning the bonus is going to be paid still in 2025. So this is what I had to share with you. And I hand it back over to Cristiano for his final messages. Well, you might not know, but this is one of the corrugated machines that we have at Figueira. So where are we right now? This might look obvious to some of you, but I think it's important for us to reinforce that message and to think about it more deeply. So we have made the major investments already.
That includes the fact that we are changing one of the recovery furnaces in one of our plants so that we can have more sustaining operations. This is the heart of a paper manufacturing plant and is one of the key equipment to show the capacity that we have. We hope that this is a new equipment. This boiler will be used for 40 or 50 years. This is what we are assessing in terms of investments for Monte Alegre. Okay, I talked about that boiler so that you know that this is an asset that, well, has been used since the 40s to show you precisely that we can have the new one also serving as an asset for decades to come. It can be a big asset in helping us build packaging and other products.
We also have Puma, for example, which is top-notch, state-of-the-art technology when it comes to high-end products such as sack and milk-grade products. And in that regard, we have brought 900,000 additional tons of capacity for this paper that can be used for packaging for liquids. Now, okay, so we have covered most of the investments already. And I've mentioned a few times the fact that we have very long-term contracts with stable and safe prices with some of our customers. And we also work with partners with whom research and development plays an important role. And this is particularly important for us because it also reduces our cash cost. And Klabin is the company that has reduced the weight of its paper the most in the industry while maintaining the paper characteristics. Customers who use Machine 27 for boxes, that box can weigh 10% more than traditional boxes.
This means, among other things, reduction in the cost of shipment and freight and more efficiency across the value chain, and all the investments we've done and the investment we've made in our people as well is something that we focus on in the first step of this information, and now we are going into the second step. Of course, we have bought some of our competitors, and we have made investments to protect our ROIC, and this amounted to BRL 25 billion total, but now we're entering into a new cycle that should last at least five years, in which we want to bring leveraging to very, very safe levels, and in the meantime, we've been studying forestry. We know that there are some parts of South Brazil where we need to prepare that land for future investments, and this is what we've been doing throughout these five years.
The company will also undertake a new process related to operational continuity, including forestry operations, so that we have all new trees being planted so that we can use them in the future. Another thing is, Ricardo Cardoso, our head of engineering, has been very meticulous in choosing what needs to be done in each plant. We now have a department that is dedicated to assessing that. This is what has made us more efficient in terms of business continuity because that is the Achilles heel of our sector across the globe. If you visit any paper pulp manufacturer in the Northern Hemisphere, and of course, we're not here to say that that region is not as good as ours, but if you visit those manufacturers, especially in North America, we're talking about the fact that they have very little predictability when it comes to operational continuity.
In some cases, if you make a five-year curve, there are companies and equipment that are now reducing their capacity with time because they cannot make new investments. They don't have the room for that. Sometimes they don't have available labor. Sometimes they don't have available wood, and there is a big difference between competitive cost and wood availability because it's one thing to buy wood waste and then use a boiler that lasts for 40 years and make sure that that wood will be available for 40 years. These are completely different debates. Okay, so all of that has been done. We have high-end products in our portfolio, a stable production, and letting you know that our governance structure and our operational continuity has been very well established. I believe that we are serving as a benchmark in our industry. Ricardo has seen that in other companies.
Yes, we will now start to reduce our debt structure through EBITDA. No, not right now. As I mentioned, we actually increased our leverage through EBITDA through cash generation. But now what I want to show you is we said that we're going to be reducing our debt structure in the next years. And here, I'm not even counting on EBITDA. And why not? Well, because prices, if we look at the worst pulp and kraft paper prices today, and I mean today, between the worst price here and the inflation in the U.S. on top of it, that is the price that shows that we are at a quarter of worst price in history in our industry. What do I mean by that? We cannot count on cash flow generation through EBITDA.
Yes, we will continue to be very disciplined in terms of our cost structure, regardless of whether we'll be selling wood or not. Sorry, no, not wood selling, but land selling. That would be just an additional revenue gain, but that's not what we're counting on. But in any case, if you look at the slide here, and we could discuss more on paper and pulp prices in higher low-income countries, but just by looking at the statistics, which makes the discussion easier, you can see that in 30 years, that price should go back to normal levels, and I also believe that this is what we're going to see in the next few years.
If prices go back to $100 or $200, this is not even something that we are going to take into consideration, meaning that we can reduce our debt even more or increase our free cash flow even more if prices go up, which is not something we are considering here.
Lastly, but not least, we always try to find a way for you to see the value without us having to straight out asking you to. But we also have to take a stand outside of the company, right, to see how our company is being perceived. And this is what I was trying to tell you from the beginning. I was telling you about the risk perception. It's as if we hadn't considered the pricing of all the actions that the company took to de-risk our operation.
Of course, there are other companies, other factors that have to be considered. These are the main leverages of the company and tell you why Klabin. Why Klabin? Because we have attributes compared to other manufacturers in the world that pale in comparison, actually. That could not be replicated in Brazil for the fact that we have short, sorry, hardwood, as well as the portfolio of assets that we have. We have great forest as well as industrial assets. We also have reached the end cycle of investments as well as a great portfolio. We have the equipment number 27 and 28 that can be converted into a cardboard. I was even talking to one here, and they said, "I think it can be even better in the future.
Kraft paper is going to become even better in the world." And I'm talking about virgin fiber kraft. It's starting to become a scarce product. So it could be in competition with cardboard in the future. And if we discount the calculations and the cost and the cycles of investments of the few years, you can see that we are way beyond the value of the company. So I think we can just close here, right, Gabi? And I think we are ready to open for our Q&A. Thank you. Thank you very much, Cristiano and Gabriela. And now, yes, we are going to open our Q&A. This is the moment where we're going to have the opportunity to clarify any questions about the presentation that we just heard.
We are also going to have the presence of other directors of the company also to be able to answer your questions. If you are connected online, let me just reinforce that we are going to have a QR code available up on the screen so you can send your questions, okay? If you are here in person, just raise your hand. Someone from our team will hand you a microphone. And it is not possible for us to see the right order. So the questions are going to be chosen at random. And we have enough time to guarantee that everyone will have a chance to participate, okay? So we already have a few questions here in the audience, right? You can begin. Just please introduce yourselves.
I am Marcio Farid from Goldman Sachs. Cristiano and Gabi, thank you very much for your presentation.
And Gabi, congratulations on your new role . Good luck. And I have two questions. I think, of course, the discussion about CapEx and cost was pretty relevant to Klabin. You have already given us many details. And I think two things that I would like for you to elaborate on are on the perspective about CapEx. We can see that there is disinflation over the next few years that considers a relevant deflation. Even if we consider what is already embedded as operational continuity, we already know that Klabin is growing bigger. So considering the inflation, in theory, we would have to increase the CapEx. So could you please elaborate on this nominal deflation on the assets for the next few years, especially to get to the BRL 2 billion? We already know that every year Klabin brings new projects, including to increase competitiveness.
So if you could just please elaborate on the CapEx for the next couple of years, of course, you have already detailed, but for the future, at least. And the other point is about the cost. You have already shown that there's gain in inflation. I think even the purchase of the Arauco forests has already contributed to that. So in nominal terms, of course, keeping it flat, that could still be a great achievement, but of course, we could also have the nominal gains. So have you already reached full potential of the acquisitions that you made? And what do you believe it is going to look like in the future, especially considering that part of this gain came from selling some of your forests? So how relevant is the forest sale going to be in the next years, especially to bring better operational costs?
Yes, especially even more so about lands than forests itself. So let me start talking about CapEx, okay? This is what we were talking about. We were discussing the strategy. And that was a current question, a common question, actually. And I said, "Okay, that's probably one of the best or biggest assets that we have at the company. We do know how to buy and sell land. We do know land and soil as just maybe a handful of others in the market." And again, our team is a benchmark in the entire country. But of course, this is something that tends to decrease a little bit. But we have already showed you the figures, right? So the impact in the cash cost is something that I have to say it is pretty neglectful, I guess.
In the next few years, if we consider that we are selling land, but we are also improving our assets, that's to say I am going to be selling lands 20% or 30% with a higher price, I guess. So this is not a problem at all, right? This is something that we can talk pretty openly about that. And it is not going to impact on the structure or in the framework of the cash cost of the company. And of course, I have to agree with you. There are some limits, but we are a listed company, and there's still a lot of potential for this asset. Just to give you an idea, when we were discussing that internally, we actually put down a security or a safety percentage over all of that. Again, of course, we have to be conservative.
We are located in a region with a lot of precipitation, and that's very good. It is better here than from the other regions in Brazil. Of course, we can see there are some short-term struggles, which is normal, but considering the productivity of the wood for the next 10 to 15 years, as well as the reduction of the average distance from our sites, it's definitely going to be a great gain. In the next three years, you're still going to see the benefits for it. However, the benefits that we'll have in 10 years, it's pretty much unbelievable, and this is the second pillar of the strategy of our company, buying that asset after purchasing the Monte Alegre Farm because, of course, of the lasting potential of these assets as well as the company. Again, you will see some gains for the next two years.
However, that number of BRL 70 is still going to be decreased, and it doesn't change the vision of the cash cost gains that we had in the company. Now, specifically about the operational CapEx. And of course, it's not possible to do so all at once. But I'm going off script here. But if you would like to know more about the companies because, of course, you have written reports about our company, so we would like to invite you to spend a couple of days with us in Paraná. Ricardo is something that was pretty much raised in the company. He had his whole training there. And in the next couple of years, he has established these governance processes in the company where we are investing in the crucial areas in company. Of course, we have different aisles per se, the chemical ones, the wood preparation ones.
We can show you why we are safe to say that our company, as well as the operational continuity, is going to even decrease. We have owned the methodology, and we really do invite you all to sit down with our governance team to talk about our operations for you to get to know a little bit more about the process. Again, in the last few years, we have invested great amounts in the company. Now we are basically just reaping the fruits of our investments, of course, and the support of all of you guys, investors. This is it. Thank you, Cristiano. Next one here on that side, please. The mic is not working.
Hello, good morning. First of all, congratulations to the team for organizing this event.
And I would also like to thank, I'm sorry, to congratulate Gabi for your new role in the company. So there are two points that we are always discussing as investors. The cost, CAGR, and the other thing is about Machine 28 that had its operational ramp-up finalized with success. However, there's another point about the market. Investors are still trying to understand a little bit more about that and understand how we can get the most value out of this asset that is so important for the company. So the first question is about the machine number 28. And Cristiano, you also talked about the future of kraft, about this niche market with a higher added value. How long do you think it's going to take, though? And up until then, we need to understand how we are going to evolve the mix of the 28, especially for cardboard.
Other thing about Cristiano, you talked about your trajectory of leveraging and the commitment of the company with paying dividends. The second question is to try and understand in the short term, considering the deleveraging of the company in a faster fashion, how can you back up this commitment of the dividends? And does it make sense for us to say that the company is probably going to be paying dividends in the lower end, considering this deleveraging process? First of all, I would like to thank you for your question and to invite José to sit with us. He will definitely be able to answer this question in a much better way than I can. But anyway, let me try and start. Our idea is that our strategy and the policy that we had at the company is that we have to pay dividends, okay?
What happens is, if we can see an opportunity, we will absolutely discuss it with the board. Nevertheless, we need to consider that those projects take time. We need to prepare the forests. We need to have all the environmental permits. It involves negotiation. And this process oftentimes takes two, three years to happen. And at least at the executive management level, whenever we decide something, we need to have attributes and parameters to present it to the board. And sometimes it takes two, three years, okay? So considering the need to grow this forest and to get all this environmental permit, as well as selecting the best sites, it takes a maturity level. And when we combine that with the deleveraging, we know that the deleveraging is happening even before we propose the investment. So paying dividends is not a bottleneck for us, okay? Not at all.
But I would like to invite Zé to tell you a little bit more now about the Machine 28. Okay. Thank you very much for your question. So cardboard is now going through a difficult time globally, okay? It's not only a struggle here in Brazil. We can see that this demand is basically decreasing. The numbers of this year show a decrease of about 4%. But globally, it's pretty much lateral if we consider the U.S., Europe, including China. And then, of course, we also have the problem with the huge capacity in China. We're talking about seven million in capacity for cardboard in China. And that is reaching the markets at prices that are pretty much unbeatable. And then, of course, we can use the same machinery to sell kraftliner.
So for us, it is more advantageous to buy from the 28 of the kraftliner than start competing with the cardboard. We believe that in this year, we're talking about 140,000 tons of imported kraft liner. And 40% of it comes from China alone. We're talking about 30, 40,000 tons. This year is already 70 tons, okay? And we're talking about a very small plant here in Brazil. We can see that the market is growing more competitive and that, of course, is going to affect the smaller competitors and is going to impact us all. So our option was, number one, we are not going to compete with that type of cardboard. We are looking for alternatives with kraft liner. And fortunately, we were able to have the new capacities by IP, Georgia-Pacific with a very important volume.
We're talking about over two million tons, which has brought new opportunities for Klabin to start exploring this market at the same time as the U.S. is leaving that market. Other emerging markets as China, India, Bangladesh, we can see that their demand for kraft has been increasing. Chris has already talked about that, actually. We do believe that kraft liner is going towards this niche market. And we already have seen this at thicker diameters. And Klabin is ready to do so. The Machine 28 has the capacity to do so at Otacílio Costa. We also have machinery that is available to meet this demand. And we already know that even China has been one of our biggest customers. In the last five months, our share and our growth in exports to China has grown tenfold. So this is only talking about price.
If we compare kraftliner against cardboard, we know that we have better businesses to close or to close better deals with kraftliner. The Machine 28 is pretty much kraft flexible. We can make cardboard or kraftliner or all of our range of cardboard. We have just finished our certification for cardboard for liquid products, which has been a struggle. It was not easy at all, but now we're finally done with that, which is also going to open up new avenues for us, and again, because it is an equipment that is pretty flexible, we can do it for topliner , for example, which is currently being sold 200 tons more than the brown kraft, sorry, brown cardboard. Now, we are also producing white cardboard, which Klabin was not doing up until then, but for pharmaceutical or for cosmetics, they usually use white cardboard.
So now we have adapted our Machine 28. We have reached the final of our potential. So at the end of our potential, we are now ready for other products. We have certification for cosmetics, pharmaceutical companies, as well as book covers, for example. So in 2026, we are definitely going to be growing in our presence of white cardboard. And we do believe that we are going to get 50% in cardboard and the other 50% in containerboard with a price. So we are now looking more at margins than necessarily wanting to produce the cardboard. We are doing, but not as quickly as we thought at the beginning. So for 2026, when you look at the budget, you have already considered this improvement of the mix being produced there. Yes. So you expect to get to 50% in 2026. Yes.
And the other 50%, again, trying to get these products with higher margins. Yes. Maybe now I can say that Klabin is already approved for all the milk brands in the world, right? Yes, absolutely. Of course, now it's going to be up to the global demand to increase. We can see some increases already in the demand for containerboard in Europe, for example. Europe has been lateral for a long time, up until last year, pretty much growing at 0%. So now we can see some difference, some improvement. And the other thing is about the U.S. market. The kraftliner, we do expect to see some reaction in terms of prices in the first quarter of the year, considering the domestic demand that is still pretty much lateral.
So as soon as they start growing in containerboard, we're definitely going to be able to see the two million tons that are going to leave the market. And considering the demand, of course, the prices are going to be affected in the short term. And the options, once we have the approval for the mill, of course, we can do that already. Thank you, José, for the question. Can we go to the right side this time to mix things up? Can you say your name before the question? Yes. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm Caio Ribeiro from Bank of America. First of all, I want to congratulate Gabriela Woge for her new position. I wish you all the success in the world. Same thing to Marcos Ivo. And now let's go back to, well, Klabin quality. You talked about integration, diversification.
I want to ask you a bit more about whether there are any products today that you identify as being missing in Klabin's portfolio and that you would like to add to it or maybe to expand it in any way, bringing additional integrations into the company. And also talking about growth avenues, we've seen Klabin in the past looking for organic and inorganic growth opportunities. Given where the company is today, can you please tell us more about, well, what you expect in terms of how you would like to grow from now on? Thank you for the question. In terms of the products that you would like to bring to the portfolio, I think this has more to do with a business model than a specific product. I can't tell you what it is right now because this is something that we're still developing.
But yes, we will be working towards something new in the next few years. In packaging, for example, we've realized in the past few years that service is also very important. We need to be able to support our customers in different ways, providing them with services in their own plants and businesses. And I believe that we could offer other products beyond corrugated boards when working with customers. In other geographies, well, we believe, and I mean, here, I'm not trying to sound dogmatic, but there are some things that are fundamental to us. For example, fibers made in Brazil. We believe that Brazil can even produce more fibers. And here I'm talking about both softwood, hardwood, paperboard, and others. But we believe that competition in fiber production in Brazil, this is something that can also grow.
Even though there is competitive wood price in other parts of the globe, but if you look at everything we need for long-term investment, to us, at least Brazil continues to be the best place ever to invest in fibers. As I mentioned before, I believe that Klabin in the next few years will change. I'm not saying whether it's going to take place in the next two, three, or five, 10 years, but everything that we develop in terms of fiber technology here in Brazil is also going to benefit exports. Yes, if Brazil can increase its income level, we can bring more products to the Brazilian market as well. We are too large for Brazil, let's say. In the future, we want to know where to send it to and whether we want to sell it through partners or directly.
But I'd say that there's nothing in our pipeline in the short term that we will take to the board in terms of new growth avenue. Next question. I'm Luiz Barsi . I am a long-term shareholder. And I'd like to first congratulate you on the presentation. Every time that I have had the chance to come here and participate on a Klabin Day, we've always had brilliant presentations that were truly clarifying and comprehensive. So I would like to say one thing. Klabin's DNA has always been acquiring more debt. And this increasing debt, if we look at the main analysts, they have criticized the debt levels of the company, which is one of the reasons why Klabin's shareholders are always at an excellent point to be bought by others. And I hope that this continues to be the case.
I hope these analysts continue to talk about their debt levels, but what I want to say is something else. In the market now, there are six companies that pay quarterly dividends. These companies that pay quarterly dividends, from what I understand, are companies that they do not offer variable income papers like equity, but fixed income bonds. Klabin pays us every three months, so it seems to me that Klabin is one of the great shares that we can buy in the Brazilian market right now due to that. That being said, I'd like to know whether you are considering any other major investments because these major investments, they require you to take on even additional debt, and Klabin will continue to have its share cost what it has always cost.
We expected our share prices to double or even triple despite investments, certainly because we've built a safety net after recent investments. Now, we have different levels of investments in terms of absolute numbers. If we want to invest, let's say, on something new, given our EBITDA and our EBITDA in the past 12 months, well, is well known, and the price curve is now favorable, but we've been able to create more cash flow through debt reduction, which in turn would allow us to invest BRL 10 billion without requiring additional debt. That's why we created the safety net, and now we believe that BRL 10 billion investments won't even require additional credit. As I mentioned earlier, we currently have 5.3% of debt costs in our USD loans, and this has not gone down since 2014, if I'm not mistaken. We haven't issued new shares either.
So every new shareholder in the past 10 years were able to see our cash flow double with no need to issue new shares to water down your equity. I usually say that this is almost like a private equity, but with a 20-30-year business plan, which is great for any shareholder. Now, back to the topic of investments, and well, that structure, given the safety net that we have established through recent policies, we believe that these investments will take place more easily. I spend two to three days out of a week, and I'm not talking about a five-day week but a seven-day week because I work on weekends as well. Talking about new investments, Sandro, which is our guy who looks at Brazil more broadly and looking for new land, especially in Southern Brazil, for us to grow, is doing great work.
I talked about increased tons of productivity in Southern Brazil. We are just checking when it would be the best moment to take that to the board and then announce it to other shareholders. We know that this is actually one of the important assets that we have in our company because we see that we have had companies in North America who are growing smaller, even though they have been in the industry for over 100 years, and this is not where we are. We want to increase our market share because we know that we have the ability to increase our capacity with low additional costs. Now I have a question from Daniel, who is with us remotely. He is an individual shareholder, and he's asking whether we have any plans or that Klabin has any plans to launch a new plant in Piracicaba.
That's a very specific question. The legal team would not allow me to answer something so specific, but what I can say is that we have made known publicly that we are conducting studies in Piracicaba, and we are planning on launching a plant for recycled paper, and on the website, on Figueira site , actually, you have seen that we have already prepared the site for recycled paper machinery, but it is not contingent to export price. If export prices go up, we want to continue to export 40,000 to 45,000 tons of kraftliner. And again, if the Brazilian market also grows with increased GDP, we might need to increase recycled paper production. Now, we have a question by Lucas Gabriel Weber, who is also an individual investor, who says, "Well, good morning. Congrats on the presentation.
The dividends that you announced yesterday will include everything that shareholders are paid in 2026, or should we wait for future announcements to know that? The interim dividends that we announced, they are the result of our financial discipline policy. So this is taking consideration in the dividends that we'll be distributing. So we hope to have something similar next year. Okay, thank you. Now let's ask another question from the in-person audience. We have one question at the back. Good morning, everyone. I want to congratulate you, Gabi, on your promotion. Now, I have a quick question on the competition. We know that some of the main players have plans that are going to be inaugurated: Eldorado, Suzano, and Kimberly-Clark. And you will be leveraging the business as well.
But if you can tell us more about some of the new offerings and how Klabin will handle the additional volume that is going to be put in the market? Great, thank you for the question. I feel we're talking about hardwood pulp, 60% of which is used here in Brazil. So let me elaborate on top of 1.1 billion tons that we have in Klabin, the 4.4 million. So out of the 1.1 billion tons of Brazil, 4.4 are hardwood products. And if you look at the last few decades, the demand was, well, mostly drawn from Asia. This is something that we all know. And this organic growth in Asia was crucial for the industry's result. This number varies from 0.8 million tons a year to 1.5 million tons of growth in Asia every year in the past years.
This additional capacity has never really scared us because we know that the organic growth in Asia was able to take up additional capacity from Brazilian players. I'd say that, well, for some time, we did not even account for the fact that some companies have reduced their production capacity in recent years. Now, more recently, and this is something that Zé mentioned, we have seen some small plants being closed in North America, reducing two million tons in a single quarter, which is a lot. It is too soon to say, but it seems that one of our hypotheses of the recent years is now being confirmed. These projects that are now being launched, they are challenging because they require large engineering efforts, and they are far from the forestry land. This is the new reality in our industry.
They work in parts of Brazil that require further soil analysis and analysis related to rainfall regularity so they can understand what they can expect from these projects in Northeast Brazil and the Midwest, and we believe that they might need great production to be able to offset the investments, but yes, we have seen sites with 3.5 million tons, and the idea now is to see when that's going to enter the market. Two years from now, three years from now, what is the organic consumption? Will China continue to buy what it does, or will it grow its consumption? These are somewhat easy forecasts, but what we're doing is looking in the longer term, and we're even considering making a larger plant in years to come if we look at an increased per capita consumption in the next years.
Of course, we believe that the top players will probably move sideways, but we believe that other smaller countries might see their consumption go up. So we are looking into investments to meet that demand. But there's one thing that I wanted to bring to this discussion because it's something that I've seen come up many times, and I love talking about it. I often hear people say, "Oh, Brazil is bringing lots of capacity into the market at low cost," which is great. It shows that we are competitive. And then people say that prices will therefore go down in the future. Well, I love debating that with others because I don't believe that is the case. Why not? Well, because, and actually, I'll cover two simple examples.
When I bought coconut and peach for the first time, and I then learned about pricing strategies in college, I learned that prices are actually set by the market. If I go to the beach now to buy coconut, it costs 10 times more than it did in the past. So if we have demand, prices will go up regardless of the cost structure. But companies with lower cost structures will be able to have higher profitable margins. But let's say if Brazil temperatures go down and then no one is going to the beach anymore, no one's buying coconut anymore, the prices will go down, right? So the same thing is true here. But since we have low costs, we can adjust to lower prices as well. Thank you, Chris and Gabi, for sharing the information with us. Gabi, I hope that you have success in your new role.
Now, I want to go on to the strategy. I know that you have already talked about that, but I wanted to understand more about what to expect in terms of resilience in the ROI and downstream changes because we've been talking a lot about fiber competition here in Brazil. So looking forward, we always think of Klabin as a company that can operate in pulp and paper industries with a balanced mix. Is that still how you see that, or should we think that Klabin will work more with paper and less with pulp? I just wanted to know whether your mindset has changed when you look at the pulp and paper industry with these new verticalization strategies in China. I know that you work in a different niche because you also work with softwood and fluff, but I just wanted to know.
Gabi, your guidance for cost per ton next year does not include the amount that you expect to raise with land sold, right? So this 3200 to 3.3,000 reais per ton is not taking that into consideration, right? Okay, let me go first because my answer is easier. Yes, we did not bring that into this line, but the expectations for land negotiations next year are very similar to the ones that we had this year, so there will be no big variation between 2025 and 2026. And we usually say that the world of paper and pulp is all about the fibers, right? Fibers could do anything. So we just need to think about what products we can actually produce. And Klabin, for decades now, we started working with corrugated cardboard, for example, in the 1970s.
And we have this characteristic of diversifying our portfolio and being stable. And we are a company stable because we want to, so we strive to do so. And when we talk about cash flow generation, we usually know that pulp has this potential of bringing in cash flow in a faster fashion, in better or higher levels than paper. The dynamic for paper is different because we have recycled paper, for example. And a quick story here to share with you that back in the 1980s or 1990s, when we walked around the city, we could see those huge paper bags in the city. And we know that we could also see those scraps of papers. And now we have customers that became customers with us because they wanted those scraps of paper. And that doesn't exist anymore. That type of fiber is no longer used.
Toilet paper, for example, especially in a country such as ours, usually is discarded in landfills, and that fiber can no longer be used. In other countries of the world, it doesn't go to landfills, but it goes to other treatment plants. Tissue paper is not retrofitting the whole system, and that has changed the profile of use of fibers, especially because we are no longer writing and printing paper as much. So now we are basically talking about new papers that can either go to landfills or treatment plants. Whenever we think about urbanization and other countries in the world that are still going through this process, we have to consider the behavior in tissue consumption as well as what we call this entire chain whenever the income starts growing.
We know that the tissue has this per capita consumption potential of about four billion people with a huge consumption potential. Of course, this is something that happens over time and in a marginal way. Here in Latin America, we still have a huge potential. Now, when we talk about land availability, I am not scared about the myth of lack of land. We do have land here in Brazil. We have a lot of land that is being used for livestock creation with low productivity. Part of this land is going to go for agricultural purposes, but part of it is going to forestry as well. That gives us the potential to more than double the amount of area being used for paper and pulp. We're talking about more than 10 million acres of land, doubling then the capacity for forestry in Brazil.
I mean, I took a long turn to tell you that, yes, there is a lot of potential yet for Brazil, even though if it is a long term. Next question, please. Hi, good morning. My name is Igor Guedes from Genial. Congratulations, Gabi. Once more, everyone is congratulating you, right? To build on what Barcia asked, you were talking about imports of cardboard paper. And of course, many analysts also have the synergy with the steel industry. And there are these anti-dumping measures for steel. So do you believe it's possible to do so with cardboard as well? I don't know whether you were addressing her, but I am going to start, and then she can build on that. We were actually talking about ore and steel and comparing that to paper and pulp. And of course, there are differences.
So let me elaborate on that just to make sure that we are on the same page, okay? So Brazil produces ore, and the steel industry is highly competitive outside of Brazil. In the case of paper and pulp, we also produce wood, okay? So let's compare forests to ore. So this is basically the raw material, the main input for the steel industry. And of course, with all due respect to my colleagues from the steel industry, and I am no expert in their industry, okay? But I mean, this is the perspective that we see when it comes to the competitiveness of the steel in the world. And we know that Asia is extremely competitive. Now, specifically about paper and pulp, Brazil has the lowest cash cost in the world, okay?
As Zé was talking about the imports, if we compare that to the cash cost, we know that there is no threat there. Our threat comes from a different phenomenon that is the export of the deflation from China. Currently, we can see that China is overproducing, and they have displaced from some places in the world, especially Europe and the U.S. So now they are aiming Latin America. So we are aiming. So we are suffering the impact of the export of this deflation from China. But it has to do with the capital cost and the investments of China. But all that is to say that the paper and pulp industry is different from the steel industry because our industry is the most competitive industry in the world. So it is not related at all to other infrastructural or structural risks that other industries do.
About this specific measure that you mentioned, I mean, back in my days of college, if we ever talked about taxes, it was a problem because we're talking about globalization, right? But nowadays, the whole world is doing so. Even Brazil, they are defending against the outside market with taxes. But this is not related to cash costs. It's more to do with the circumstantial conditions given the fact that there is this deflation from China. And I am sorry if I were just too worried with that answer. Okay, we have another answer here, and then we go back to that to you, okay? So there first, and then we go to the last question from this side. Good morning. Thank you very much for getting my question. Now, I am going to talk about specifically cardboard. It was a very positive highlight from this year.
Maybe you can get some share because of the price and so on. So if you could elaborate on the main factors and the contributions, even Figueira 's contribution to your outstanding performance and what you expect for next year. We can see that paper has this forecast of growth of about 4%, and very quickly about the cost, if this higher volume of corrugated cardboard could change the directions in the fixed cost or have any impact on the cash cost. Thank you very much. The dilution of this fixed cost has to do with the increment or the growth of our productivity, and this is more significant than the cash cost. But now, the next star of the year, a side of Gabi to answer that. Yes, we have grown more in 2024. Actually, we have grown more than the market, above the market in 2024 and 2025.
This is mainly due to the fact that we are present in all the regions. We can benefit from the different impacts of the market in all of the regions. We also have the fibers, just like Chris said. That gives us more flexibility to seize the opportunities. This is one of the main attributes. We can actually be more competitive, and we can deliver a product with a better operational efficiency to our customers. This is definitely a differential. The other point to me is that we are present in sectors that require virgin wood, what we call in Brazil, FLV, but this is mainly the sector of food, fruits, vegetables, and milk. They are growing. We have a high market share there, so that gives us a good opportunity.
The export of protein has also been growing in Brazil, way above market, and it allows for us to combine our edge with fiber as well as our presence with the market, and we also could close a deal at the end of 2024 with one of the biggest packaging buyers in Brazil. I think the final piece is that we can guarantee our service level. The corrugated cardboard does not have inventory. So sometimes we have large orders being put in with 24 hours' notice, so we bought IP, consolidating our position in the market as well. We also have invested in the Northeast region, in Ceará. We also invested in Figueira and also other small investments that you don't necessarily have access to, but they have to do with equipment improvements as well as other plants in Brazil, sorry, increasing our service level, okay?
So when we add all that, we expect that for the next year, our GDP can grow in about 1.5%-2%. Paper and pulp is going to do maybe a little bit better than that. So these are good opportunities for us next year as well. So increasing this volume from the market as well as seizing the better inflation for the next years, helping us with this price push. Okay, thank you very much for your presence. And now the final question, please. Okay, good morning, everyone. I am Leonardo Correa from BTG Pactual. And again, thank you, Marcos, and good luck, Gabi, on your new role. First of all, Cristiano, and I know that that's a very difficult question, and maybe you don't have anything to report on that, but in the past, we have always considered consolidation in a more structured or transformational movement.
In the world, we have seen two big movements from your competitors, sorry, and in Brazil, we also had some different movements with billions creating synergy, and the discussion with the market is, okay, what's the future for Klabin in 10, 5 years from now? You talked about that a lot, how we can prepare the company for the future, but I wanted to hear from the main opportunities. I know that maybe you don't have anything to report right now, but what are the opportunities that you can see, maybe creating partnerships or considering those new changes with China competing against imported paper, so maybe you can combine and partner up with other companies in a more structured way.
The other question, and I don't know, maybe it was just for me, but we can still see this message about harvesting and deleveraging, but of course, the rhythm is a little slower, maybe because of the international landscape. I wanted to hear about fluff. In the past, you were talking about possibilities for the future. Is this opportunity? Is there any opportunities out there? Is this a commodity that has a differential? I'm sorry for calling it a commodity, but anyway, what is the future for that? Even if there is a future for fluff? Absolutely, yes, there is a future. Even if we are still not ready to bring it to the board, we are laying the pipework for it. Fluff has been one of the main investments for the company as well as recycled paper for a while now.
I don't like the word niche. I'm sorry, the word commodity for fluff because we're talking about a 6 million tons market and a 480 million tons. We don't even get to 70 million. We're talking about less than 10% of the pulp or both soft and hardwood combined. Only the hardwood fluff, there is, of course, a niche within this entire market. Of course, it's not easy to approve that, as well as the softwood. We consider that in the paper and pulp world, that this softwood fluff is one of the priorities still for our investment. Why is that? That's simple. The operational cash flow generation in the Northern Hemisphere companies corresponds to 10% of our capacity. If they are doing $30-$40, we are doing $300-$400 per ton with the same product.
So it is a niche product with a high entry cost for the fact that we don't have softwood. There are not many companies with this availability nowadays. And we can actually get to this replacement for softwood with an opportunity that I don't think can be matched anywhere in the world, 400-900 per module, getting to 1,000 tons of this product for the 1,000 tons produced per year, which we can do. So this is one of the projects that we have. We have other three or four. We are still studying, of course, the engineering aspect and so on and so forth to consider the forest aspect. And when this asset is ready, of course, there's interest rate and many aspects that have to be considered. But of course, this is something that we have to present to the board.
Now, about the M&A, let me give you some figures. If we get the 20 biggest listed companies in the world in our sector, it sums up to $150 billion in the market, and I know that it is crazy to compare things, but one of the biggest technology companies is worth $3 to $4 trillion. So if we consider the investment that has gone to technology, and in theory, it is going to become investments, and it is going to generate returns in the future, there's even this article from the CEO at IBM with this hypothesis, so I would like to invite all of you to Google some things, and I don't think this video is going to be watched all over the world.
But I wanted you to start discussing this thesis considering that we are in a sector that is more than 100 years old and with a very solid demand trending for the future, with a profitability that is 10%, that is 10 times bigger than other Northern Hemisphere companies. So let's compare 20 of the biggest companies in the world against one of the technology sectors. And you guys from finance, you are very pragmatic. You are fact-based, right? And you can see that the biggest returns in the world do not come from those sectors in technology sectors. We are talking about returns here in our industry that we can actually forecast for the next 30 to 40 years, at least here at Klabin. So we are still at a very fragmented sector.
We're always talking about sustainability, and we do not see that in the market, not even in the soft skills or hard skills. So the way of creating value for companies outside of the Southern end of the world is going to happen through M&A. So yes, I do believe in M&As. We already had some happening last year. And part of the next ones that will take place in the next five to 10 years have to do with how successful the last ones are. So let's see how they are going to perform. And I have not seen a large M&A of a company from the South and of the North from the North. So I guess that the cherry on top that I want to leave to you now, we've already had some small M&As considering the potential of the entire market.
But when we start combining North-based companies with South-based companies, the North ones, when we have, of course, high added value and the very competitive cash cost companies, when they actually are better considering the freight values, of course, this is going to be a very transformational M&A. So we are here in the South of the globe, and we export to the companies in the North of the globe so they can do the packaging and so on. So I think this is the biggest potential that we have for M&A in the future. We don't have anything in sight, but it could generate more value for the sector. Cristiano and Gabi, thank you so very much for joining us and for answering our audience's questions. Unfortunately, we have run short of time, and we're going to have to wrap up.
If you have questions that are left unanswered, we will be answering them by email. Please look out for the emails by the Investor Relations team . And now, ladies and gentlemen, we are here to recognize Klabin's commitment to the industry. This is the 24th year in a row where Klabin is given the APIMEC Award given by APIMEC Brasil , which is the Association of Investment Analysts in the Capital Markets. And I invite to the stage Mara Limongi, who is the Vice President of APIMEC Brasil , and welcome. Mara, if you want to say a few words, you are welcome to do so. Well, I want to congratulate Gabi for your successful journey. I know that everyone else has said that, but I want to say it again.
APIMEC Brasil has been linking analysts and other professionals in the capital markets with publicly traded companies for more than 50 years. I've been at APIMEC Brasil for 33 years myself. We use APIMEC as a way to connect companies and professionals in the capital markets. On behalf of APIMEC and all the professionals that we represent, I want to thank you. I want to thank Klabin. For the past 24 years, you've been given this award consistently. This is the last time you get an award with a classification because now you are a Diamond company , which is the highest possible because you have been one of the greatest companies to work with us. I want to congratulate you on today's event. It has become a common event in our calendar and always with very high-quality information.
We're very happy with the partnership we have built. Thank you for the recognition. I also want to thank Mara for joining us this morning. I want to thank Cristiano and Gabriela for hosting this event. Feel free to go back to your seats. With that, ladies and gentlemen, we are at the end of our meeting. On behalf of Klabin, I want to thank you all for joining us this morning. This has been a valuable opportunity to share how the company has advanced and reiterate Klabin's commitment to generating value to shareholders and the broader society. Thank you so very much, and we will see you next time.