2007-12-21

Stora Enso continues co-determination negotiations at Kemijärvi and Kymenlaakso, seeking economically sound alternatives

Stora Enso's co-determination negotiations with employee representatives at Kemijärvi and Kymenlaakso are continuing. No decisions concerning potential alternative uses of any of the assets to be closed have been or will be made prior to the completion of the negotiations. For the sites to be closed, the alternatives do not include the sale of the assets for their current use.

Every effort is being made to find alternatives that support the Company's stated strategy of using more domestic wood at Stora Enso's mills, whilst reducing purchases of excessively expensive imported wood. As previously stated, the Company's goal is to secure access to domestic wood at the larger mill sites in Northern Finland. At the same time the company is seeking economically viable alternatives for the affected sites that can provide employment opportunities for those employees unable or unwilling to seek Company-supported relocation and new employment in other locations.

“My impression is that the local co-determination negotiations, whilst understandably difficult and challenging, are proceeding in a constructive atmosphere. We are committed to not only completing these negotiations in good faith and supporting the employees affected, as we have already said, but also actively seeking other alternative uses of the sites that we plan to stop using in their present format of pulp or paper production,” said Stora Enso CEO Jouko Karvinen.

“Our goal remains to find solutions for the Kemijärvi pulp mill and Summa paper mill in a way that permanently reduces the use of expensive imported pulpwood in Finland thus improving the future and jobs at Veitsiluoto, Oulu and other large entities. To our delight, several parties have expressed their clear interest in the sites affected, some of them also clearly supporting our goal of reducing use of imported pulpwood. The negotiations on several competing alternatives will be conducted between us and the interested parties, the moment we have something definite to tell about real agreements we will naturally communicate it, first to our employees,” Karvinen continued.

“As one of several parties expressing interest in the facilities in Lapland and Kymenlaakso, Ruukki Group yesterday publicly announced their confidential offer letter for Kemijärvi Pulp Mill. Earlier today we gave our response to them where we stated that in our view their offer does not support our goals of using the domestic pulpwood in our larger entities to secure their future and is therefore as described of no interest to us.,” CEO Jouko Karvinen concluded.

Information about the company: Stora Enso Oyj