Finland celebrates "pulp and beyond"

New vistas of the Finnish forest industry were celebrated on Wednesday in Aanekoski, central Finland.

President Sauli Niinistö officially inaugurated the giant bio product plant owned by Finnish Metsa Group and Japanese Itochu.

Niinistö described the situation of the Finnish forest industry as a text book example of benefiting from free trade. "As a small and open economy, we have been able to make use of our knowhow, inventiveness and natural resources," Niinistö said.

Niinistö raised also the impact of the wood based innovations. "Wood is already used as an alternative to plastic, cotton and man-made fabrics," he reminded.

The 1.2-billion-euro investment is the largest ever in the history of the Finnish forest industry. When reaching full production, the annual output will be 1.3 million tons of pulp.

Of this amount, 500,000 tons of birch pulp go mainly to domestic industrial use, while the 800,000 tons of hard wood pulp will increasingly go to Chinese market albeit Europe is the main export area.

The plant consumes daily 240 truck loads and 70 railroad cars of wood. The direct value chain of the plant gives employment to 2,500 people in the production, transport and harvesting.

Research institute ETLA has estimated that the Aanekoski plant will create 12 billion euros in additional value for Finland during its estimated life span of 30 years.

Jyrki Ali-Yrkko, an executive at ETLA, told business daily Kauppalehti that Metsa Group has good prospects for international success with wood based textiles due to the experience of the partner, Itochu. "There is a strong societal demand for a new textile replacing cotton," he said.

Jyrki Ali-Yrkko said it is important that Finland today has three major industrial bastions -- the rising pulp sector, the automotive production in Uusikaupunki and the shipbuilding cluster in Turku area.