Helsinki, Finland, 15 May 2007 -- UPM will start co-determination negotiations concerning potential temporary personnel lay-offs in the company's birch plywood mills in Finland. The reason is a decrease in the volume of birch logs imported from Russia. The situation looks difficult for next autumn in particular, because units have not been able to get enough birch logs in storage for the autumn.

The objective of the negotiations is to agree on how to handle the effects on personnel of the process of adjusting the birch plywood mills' production to the amount of raw material available.

UPM's Finnish birch plywood mills are located in Heinola, Joensuu, JyvÃskylÃ, Lappeenranta, and Savonlinna. In total, the mills employ some 2400 people and manufacture some 500,000 m3 of birch plywood, mainly for construction and interior decoration and the transport industry in Central and Southern Europe.