Open invitation to visit Botnia Joutseno mill and its operations on 31 August

Botnia would like to invite interested organisations and especially CEDHA to
visit Botnia's Joutseno mill on Thursday, 31 August 2006. 

Botnia already announced an open invitation on 17 June 2006, and continues
dialogue with a number of environmental organisations in order to provide
information to various stakeholders. 

An Argentinean organisation CEDHA has been in the forefront of opposition
against the Botnia mill in Fray Bentos, Uruguay. We would like to use the
opportunity of CEDHA's visit to Finland to establish better dialogue concerning
the social, environmental and economical impacts of the Botnia mill in the
Uruguay River region. 

Botnia urges interested parties to join this visit to Joutseno pulp mill where
Botnia will demonstrate our commitment to Best Available Techniques based on
EU's standards, our commitment to environmental protection, transparency and
open dialogue. Botnia wishes to enhance dialogue with all interested parties to
clarify possible concerns arisen in connection to our project in Fray Bentos. 

Joutseno is a good parallel example as about a million tons of Kraft and BCTMP
pulp is produced on the mill site, handling about the same volume of wood as
the two pulp mills in Fray Bentos. Within 25 km radius from the Botnia mill,
there are the homes of over 100,000 inhabitants and the sites of four companies
producing alltogether almost five million tons of pulp and paper. 

For further information and more details on the programme please contact

Kaisu Annala, Vice President, Environment, e-mail
kaisu.h.annala@metsabotnia.com, tel. +358 50 383 6109, fax +358 (0)10 469 4402