Already in March, Henrik Sjölund, head of Holmen Paper, said: “We’re forced to shut down parts of our newsprint production. Falling demand, pressure on prices, excessively high costs of raw materials and, not least, the strong Swedish krona makes this measure inevitable. It’s extremely regrettable that it has to affect so many of our employees.”

Sjölund hopes that capacity cuts –  affected is also the paper mill in Hallsta, where the shut down of the PM51 will reduce the capacity of SC paper by 140.000 t per year – will gradually lead to a better market balance in 2013.