The Association of Newspaper and Magazine Wholesalers has provoked furious reactions across the industry with proposals to increase carriage charges on weekend newspapers. The proposals come as publishers, wholesalers and retailers continue to thrash out a joint eight-point industry solution to modernise the distribution chain. But the ANMW has broken ranks in a bid to recoup expenses incurred by its members in processing increasingly bulky Saturday and Sunday newspapers Its independent report published this week suggests wholesalers have lost £18.5m a year for the last five years as increasingly heavy newspapers drain time and resources. ANMW director general Terry Perry said retailers must now shoulder the brunt of these costs through increases in carriage charges planned by wholesalers for January 2002, unless newspaper publishers agree to contribute to costs. Association of Convenience Stores chairman Mike Greene, who also chairs its News Retailing Group, said: "This is very disappointing. Publishers, wholesalers and retailers had agreed to work together for the first time in years to find an industry solution to the problem of distribution. This is the ANMW imposing its own solution." He added: "It contravenes the spirit of talks already taking place between publishers, wholesalers and retailers. We had agreed not to make changes in terms during the discussions." A retailer source said: "This is very annoying. Retailers' margins are being slowly eroded on carriage charges ­ you can't pass increases in that category on to customers, because the cover price is fixed. "We need a moratorium on charges so that we can concentrate on finding an industry solution to the whole distribution problem." The ANMW represents all three major newspaper wholesalers ­ WHSmith, Surridge Dawson, and Menzies ­ as well as independent wholesalers. {{NEWS }}