Johnson says Turkish cardboard company will take over Welsh newspaper mill as circulations fall

Boris Johnson has announced the Turkish takeover of a paper mill in Wales before a global investment summit in London today designed to one-up the President of France.

Eren Paper, owned by Turkey’s Eren Holding, is investing £500 million to buy a mill in Shotton to produce cardboard from paper waste.

Eren Holdings agreed to acquire the paper mill from Finnish firm UPM who said in September it would permanently close paper production at its Shotton newsprint site.

The site was founded in 1983 and at its height employed around 530 people, but the decline in newspaper circulation pushed the Finnish firm to sell the site.

Eren Paper will now begin work pivoting the site from newsprint to tissue and cardboard. The mill will be powered by biomass fuel and the investment is expected to create around 300 new jobs.

Boris Johnson made the announcement while pointing to £10 billion of overseas investment in Britain as part of a business summit in which nearly 200 business leaders, including Bill Gates, will network with ministers and attend a reception with the Queen at Windsor Castle.

Ministers briefed the Times that the total investment as part of the announcement was designed to beat the £3 billion of deals announced by President Macron at his annual “Choose France” networking event.

‘Massive potential’

Boris Johnson also announced that Budweiser Brewing Group, the UK arm of global brewer AB InBev, and Protium, the UK-based green hydrogen energy services company, have teamed up to deploy zero emission green hydrogen at the Magor brewery in Wales, one of the largest breweries in the UK.

They will invest more than £100m for a hydrogen generation system that will fuel the brewery’s production and also its key logistics assets, including heavy goods vehicles and forklift trucks.

Boris Johnson said: “The world’s top investors have seen the massive potential in the UK for growth and innovation in the industries of the future. The fantastic £9.7 billion of new investment we have secured today will power our economic recovery, creating thousands of jobs and helping to level up across the country.

“This is just the start. We will see new partnerships for green growth forged at today’s Global Investment Summit, as we look ahead to COP26 and beyond.”