Stora Enso’s sales 2009 were 8,945.1 million Euros, compared with 11,028.8 million 2008. The operating result, excluding non recurring items, was 320.5 million Euros, down from 388.4 million the previous year, and the result before tax was -886.8 million Euros (-893.8).Stora Enso’s net result for the year was -878.2 million euros (-679.0). Earnings per share were -1.12 Euro (-0.86).For the fourth quarter of 2009 Stora Enso reports an operating profit, excluding non recurring items, of 137.5 million Euros, compared to 28.4 million the fourth quarter 2008.“2009 ended on a strong note for Stora Enso. The highlight of the year, 1,261 million Euros cash flow from operations, is the result of active working capital management that we started already in late 2008,” said Jouko Karvinen, CEO of Storea Enso.”The second significant achievement is the cost improvements that we also started early. That allowed us not only to maintain our margin level year on year with volumes one fifth less, but more importantly enabled us to achieve margins and absolute earnings clearly higher in the second half than the first half of the year,” Karvinen continued.”Finally, net debt reduction of 530 million Euros in the most difficult operating environment in decades should demonstrate to our stakeholders that our strategy of acting early on things we can control, and not waiting for better times or for others to act, has been and remains the right strategy,” Jouko Karvinen concluded.