President and chief executive Jussi Pesonen (pictured) gave the rundown of UPM’s ongoing year in his review at the firm’s AGM last week.

He said: “In the current market situation, it has not been possible to raise magazine paper prices, and their price development has been clearly disappointing.”

However, he reported that price increases in newsprint, uncoated fine papers and some speciality grades had been achieved.

Pesonen said prices of coated fine paper grades have remained “stable”.

He added: “In Europe, the good demand for paper has continued and we expect that deliveries for the full year will improve from last year.”

Pesonen’s comments came as UK printers faced price increases of up to 8% from merchants, which are attempting to pass on price hikes from the manufacturers.

Pesonen also revealed that UPM’s labelstock business has been established as a separate division that will cover UPM Raflatac self-adhesive labelstock and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags.