The company said that it would shut down three mills and lay off 985 staff.
The staff protest, which is like;ly to be the first of many if Stora management
persist with their plans, was scheduled to last for three days.

The mills slated for closure are all in Finland.
The Kemijarvi pulp mill will be permanently closed down by the end of April
2008 with 214 redundancies. The firm's Summa Mill in Kymenlaakso is due to be
being closed immediately due to persistent losses in recent years and poor
long-term profitability prospects. Stora Enso will make a further 450 job cuts.

Paper machine 1 at Anjala Mill will be permanently shut down in November this
year with 170 job losses. There will also be 122 job losses in services for the
Kymenlaakso area and 29 at the Helsinki
headquarters. Plans to permanently close down Norrsundet pulp mill in Sweden
at the end of 2008 are also said to be going ahead.

However on the up side Stora Enso will invest €29m
in converting a coated magazine paper machine (PM 2) at its Anjala mill in Finland
to produce coated and uncoated book paper.

The project is scheduled to start this month and be completed by October
2008. The paper giant has also bought a majority shareholding in Finland's
Trackway in a bid to develop software for tracking products throughout the
supply chain.

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