Espoo, Finland 14 April 2016 -- In early April, Metsä Board, part of the Metsä Group, had its new folding boxboard machine at Husum in Sweden inaugurated with the Swedish Minister for Enterprise and Innovation, Mikael Damberg, attending the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Among others, project partners, as well as local authorities and businesses, were also invited to the inauguration ceremony.

After considerable structural changes Husum mill is now an integrated site concentrating on paperboard and pulp manufacturing. It is also a significant local employer. The EUR 170 million investment programme included a folding boxboard machine BM1 supplied by Valmet as well as enhancements to the pulp mill and the mill site's own port. The capacity of the new machine is 400,000 t/a. The company is targeting the volume at the Americas and at food service end-uses globally.

"The Husum mill site has the best available technology, people with extensive know-how and access to an ideal location by the sea where the mill has its own port. These important success factors will also support our customers in their businesses," says Mika Joukio, CEO of Metsä Board.

Last November, Metsä Board announced an additional EUR 38 million investment in a new extrusion coating line and related infrastructure at Husum. This line will be taken into use during the first half of 2017. With this investment the company will be able to further improve its offering to food and food service end-uses.

Metsä Board is a leading European producer of folding boxboards and white linerboards made from fresh forest fibres. Its lightweight paperboards are developed as the perfect fit for consumer goods, retail-ready and food service packaging. The pure fresh forest fibres Metsä Board uses are a renewable resource, traceable to origin in northern forests.

The global sales network of Metsä Board supports customers worldwide, including brand owners, converters and merchants. In 2015, the company's sales totalled EUR 2.0 billion, and it has approximately 2,600 employees. Metsä Board, part of Metsä Group, is listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki.

Metsä Group is a forerunner in bioeconomy utilising renewable wood from sustainably managed northern forests. Metsä Group focuses on tissue and cooking papers, fresh forest fibre paperboards, pulp, wood products, and wood supply and forest services.

Metsä Group's sales totalled EUR 5 billion in 2015, and it employs approximately 9,600 people. The Group operates in some 30 countries. Metsäliitto Cooperative is the parent company of Metsä Group and is owned by approximately 116,000 Finnish forest owners.