All down, but Europe hit least hard.

In a tough first quarter of 2001, paper and board output fell in most of the world's major producer regions, but the faint light at the end of the tunnel for Europe is that at least it didn't do as badly as the others. While European output slipped by 0.6% overall, Japan suffered a -0.9% reverse, Canada was down by 2.2% and the USA had a very weak first quarter, with volumes down 7.9%.

In Europe, many countries saw their tonnages fall, but the overall drop of 130,000 tonnes was largely accounted for by Finland, where a 3.7% drop in output dwarfed the volumes lost in other countries. Within Finland, the setback was largely attributable to significant cutbacks in …