Sdra Cell president Leif Brodn said the company had looked at the money it was spending on R&D for a long time, and had come to the conclusion it was not good enough.

There is little money spent on R&D in the pulp business as a whole, he said.

The Swedish pulp producer had decided that if it was to develop a world-class site at Vr as it intends to do, significant investment was needed.

What we will look at is possibly increasing this spend by a further 50% in less than three years time, said Brodn.

The company will work on new types of pulp research and also the continuing development of new products.