Press ReleasesNippon Paper Industries Unifies Patent-Coated Board Business of the Nippon Paper Group- Integrate sales departments from October, use equipment spare capacity to develop new packaging products -

Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd.

Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd. (President: Fumio Manoshiro; hereinafter "the Company") announces that it will integrate the patent-coated board sales department of Nippon Paper Crecia Co., Ltd. (President: Yasunori Nanri; hereinafter "Nippon Paper Crecia") with the Company's Business Communication and Industrial Paper Sales Division from October 1 this year. The move is intended to integrate the sales department for the patent-coated board business, which until now has been handled separately by Nippon Paper Industries and Nippon Paper Crecia.
At the same time, the Company will streamline the production system of Nippon Paper Crecia Koyo Mill (Fuji City, Shizuoka Prefecture), which produces patent-coated board, harnessing the equipment spare capacity that is created to facilitate the development of new packaging products.

Nippon Paper Crecia Koyo Mill has been producing specialty patent-coated board and both-side patent-coated board as well as household paper products such as tissues and toilet rolls for many years. Until now, however, it was a challenge to expand sales of patent-coated board with its own sales structure alone.

Therefore, by integrating this into the Company's patent-coated board business, we will enhance sales capabilities throughout the entire Group. Further, the equipment spare capacity created by reviewing the efficiency of the Koyo Mill will be used for the development of "new packaging materials and packages based on paper", for which new demand is expected to be cultivated, such as SHIELD PLUS^®, which imparts barrier properties to paper. This will accelerate the transformation of the business structure of the entire Group.