Tokyo, March 18, 2002 - Today Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd., Japan's leading pulp and paper manufacturing firm and a member of the Nippon Unipac Holding Group, announced equity participation in Australia's WA Plantation Resources Pty Ltd. (WAPRES), the largest operator of an eucalyptus plantation and woodchip export business in Western Australia. On March 22, Nippon Paper Industries will purchase 40% of the shares of WAPRES from the international trading house Marubeni Corporation, which currently owns 100% of WAPRES shares. Nippon Paper Industries plans to increase its shareholdings in WAPRES to 50% in 2006 and the investment will amount to 22 million Australian dollars. It is the first time that a Japanese pulp and paper company will acquire equity in an existing large-scale plantation and woodchip export firm outside Japan.

The equity participation in WAPRES is yet another step forward in the on-going plantation project named "Tree Farm Initiative", Nippon Paper Industries' overseas plantation activities.
The aims are the following:
1) Afforesting more than 100,000 hectares by 2008 and,
2) Raising the ratio of hardwood chips made from plantation trees from around the globe to more than 70% of all its imported hardwood chips by 2008.
By the end of 2001, the company had already planted approximately 41,000 hectares in Australia, South Africa, Chile and China.

Nippon Paper Industries identified Australia as a strategically important country in the "Tree Farm Initiative", and it has already planted trees in the states of South Australia, Victoria, and Western Australia. Particularly in Western Australia, the company has been driving plantation projects in cooperation with Mitsui & Co., Ltd., Toyota Motor Corporation and Osaka Gas Co., Ltd. The equity participation in WAPRES facilitates the preparation of efficient facilities for wood chipping and ship loading of the planted trees from projects. Nippon Paper Industries estimates that it will save nearly 20% in woodchip production and ship loading costs compared to the green-field facilities that the company would otherwise have to build.

As a consequence of the acquisition of WAPRES shares, the original goals of expanding the area of plantation by more than 100,000 hectares and increasing the ratio of woodchips from planted trees by more than 70% will be achievable; i.e. by 2008, overseas plantations will reach approximately 110,000 hectares and the ratio of woodchips from planted trees will be approximately 80% of the total imported hardwood chips of Nippon Unipac Holding Group.

Nippon Paper Industries has already been importing woodchips from its plantation project in South Africa, and will begin to import of 300,000 tons annually from Chile in 2003.

Outline of WA Plantation Resources Pty Ltd.

Established	:	in 2000 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Marubeni Corporation (originally founded in 1969)
Head office	:	Level 5, BGC Centre, 28 The Esplanade, PERTH 6000 Australia
Plantations	:	31,000 hectares of eucalyptus trees (13,000 hectares belong to WAPRES, and it has management and cutting rights to 18,000 hectares), and 1,000 hectares of Radiata pine plantations.
Production in nursery	:	10,000,000 seedlings per year
Woodchip production and export services	:	a woodchip plant in Manjimup in Western Australia, and ship loading facilities in the port of Bunbury. WAPRES has been exporting 800,000 to 850,000 tons of eucalyptus woodchips to Japan annually since 1976.