Jefferson Smurfit has posted its second-best ever year of earnings and increased its pre-tax profit after exceptional items by 68%.


Pre-tax profits including plant closures and restructuring costs increased to 280m (E442m) from 167m in 1999. Sales rose 24% to 2.9bn.


The firm said that while it had been a year of flat and negative demand in business, prices stayed up.


Smurfit said 2000 was a watershed because it proved that rational capacity management returned value.


"Youre better off taking downtime at $475 rather than seeing the price [of pulp] go down," said chief finance officer Ian Curley.


As for the year to come, "it is too early to tell", said Curley. But he thought the first and second quarters would be tough and then the market would pick up.