Stora Enso unit, Corenso United Oy Ltd, has signed an agreement with Foshan Huaxin Packaging Co., Ltd. to purchase the assets of its core manufacturing plant in Nanhai, Foshan in Guangdong Province, China. The transaction is expected to be completed during the second quarter of 2006, subject to approval by the authorities.

Corenso will relocate the production to a new core manufacturing plant in Sanshui, Foshan. The annual capacity of the new plant will be 20 000 tonnes of various types of core, similar to Corenso’s first joint-venture plant in Hangzhou. The new plant will start production in 2007.

Corenso has been operating in China since 2001. The core manufacturing plant in Hangzhou was built in 2005. The target of the new project is to provide high-quality cores and related services to the fast-growing Chinese market. The customers will be manufacturers of paper and board, plastic films and flexible packaging, metal foils and textile yarns.