Plans for a pan-European electronic trading portal for the paper industry have been unveiled by several major producers and merchants.


The platform, provisionally called Expresso, will link the supplier and the customer and convey messages related to the transactions, said UPM-Kymmene Fine Papers vice-president of business development Pehr-Eric Ptt.


Founding partners in the project include International Paper Europe, M-Real, Sappi Europe, Soporcel and Stora Enso.


They are joined by paper merchants Antalis, Buhrmann and New Merchanting Force.


The service will serve buyers and sellers of fine paper, magazine papers and newsprint, in a market valued at 14.3bn a year.


The platform follows the collapse two months ago of PaperX.com, which failed to achieve significant support for its e-commerce service.


Expresso is aiming for an early 2002 launch. It will centre on transaction automation and basic services, and rely on the international papiNet standard and a joint product catalogue.


Ptt said a decision on the software to be applied to Expresso would be made in two to three weeks.


An Expresso website will be launched to support the venture, and Ptt confirmed that a per-transaction fee would be charged in addition to a one-off annual fee.


Story by Andy Scott