The printed word can be almost priceless. But the paper it lies on is now so cheap it is hardly worth keeping to wrap fish in. Hence deep problems for the industry that produces it, one that has struggled to make an economic return for the best part of a decade.

With seven profit warnings in 12 months from the two largest listed European pulp and paper manufacturers – Stora Enso and UPM-Kymmene – something has to change. Cost cutting has been impressive (UPM cut a fifth of its Finnish workforce in 2006) but squeezing out improvements in efficiency becomes ever more difficult. Cost pressures, meanwhile, continue to grow. Apart from the obvious – high energy costs – wood pulp prices, in nominal terms, are already at a two-decade high and Russian export tariffs on wood are set to more than triple.