Stora Enso culls 2000 jobs and closes mills

Its paper manufacturing will be cut by an annual paper
capacity of 505,000 tonnes and its pulp capacity is shrinking by some 550,000
tonnes. This will involve closing its Kemijärvi pulp mill in Finland
and the Norrsundet mill in Sweden.
The sites carry annual capacities of 250,000 and 300,000 tonnes respectively
and will close in the second quarter of 2008.

The
cuts also mean the company's Finnish Summa Paper Mill will close while the
magazine paper machine at Anjala Mill will be taken out of service allowing the
site to focus on book paper production.

Stora
Enso also plans to sell off its Kotka mills in Finland.
The laminating paper business and the special coated magazine paper operations
employ 650 people and will be sold to allow the company to focus
elsewhere.

As
a result, nearly 1,700 workers will be made unemployed by the actions. The
company's Finnish employees are expected to be hit hardest with a planned 1,400
job cuts, while the Swedish operation will likely lose around 300 staff. In
addition the company also intends to slash its administrative staff by 300 to
just over 500.

The
Group anticipates that as a result of reduced wood and energy costs and reduced
personnel, Stora Enso will see yearly net improvements to costs of between €140m
(A$220m)and €160m (A$250m) from 2009.

Stora
Enso chief executive Jouko Karvinen said: "These closures, production
rationalisations and staff reductions, however painful, are crucial for Stora
Enso to be competitive long-term.

"These
intended actions are based on specific analyses of marginal costs in wood
supply and asset quality, including future investment needs, optimisation of
fibre flows between the Nordic pulp mills, and decreasing the overall use of
fibre by reducing newsprint and magazine paper production capacity."

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