Sep 23, 2008. /Lesprom.com/. Finnish paper makers will shut down more mills if forest owners do not increase the amount of raw lumber they sell, an industry lobby group said. Finnish companies are squeezed by lack of raw material due to Russia's rising export duties and the industry body said tax breaks to forest owners to boost domestic lumber trade have not succeeded so far, Reuters reported. "Because of the wood shortage, all mills cannot be kept running," Anne Brunila, the head of the Forest Industry Association, said in a statement. "If timber sales do not rapidly increase to August levels the industry has to accommodate its production to raw material supply." Finnish paper firms Stora Enso and UPM-Kymmene said earlier this month they would cut thousands of jobs and close down production in their home country. Wood sales in August were 5.3 million cubic metres, more than twice the August average in the past 10 years, boosted by government tax incentives. But it fell to one third of last month's level in the past two weeks, the organisation said. If the sales continue at current levels, the industry would get 40 million cubic metres of wood from Finnish forests this year instead of the 60 million cubic metres it needs to keep all the mills running, the group said. Russian wood export duties have lifted the cost of imported wood. It has said it would further increase the duties to Euro 50 per cubic metre from the beginning of next year, effectively doubling the cost of Russian wood. Thousands of people in Finland own forests and fewer and fewer of them depend on wood sales for income.