The plants in Bielefeld and Flensburg will remain at their current locations and their production programmes will be unaffected by the change.

Sales activities will be reorganised and centralised at the Bielefeld site.

Hiroshi Tomimasu, managing director of the new company, said: "The new sales organisation will provide a stronger regional focus and one face to customers, regardless of what part of our product segments they are buying.

"For our global customers, this means simpler processes and better service from our company. We also expect positive cross-selling effects on our markets."

The German producers of high quality communication paper are both joint ventures of Mitsubishi Paper Mills and Mitsubishi Corporation in Japan.