Stora Enso held its annual general meeting on Tuesday. CEO Jouko Karvinen stated the paper producer’s objective to become strategically independent of Russian roundwood imported into Finland. He also gave an overview of the company’s strategy in growth markets in Latin America, Russia and China, and reported on the growth opportunities in bioenergy and innovations in various types of consumer packaging, such as intelligent pharmaceutical packaging, fibre-based disc packaging and paint cans.

 

“The year 2007 was a challenging year for Stora Enso. The financial performance of the company was burdened by extremely high fibre costs and further weakening of the US dollar. Nevertheless, we were able to maintain our earnings per share excluding non-recurring items and forest valuations year on year. We took several decisive actions to tackle the challenges the Company faces: we divested our North American operations, we responded proactively to the rapidly rising cost of imported wood fibre and we continued to invest in low-cost fibre in emerging markets,” said CEO Jouko Karvinen.