Chinese Demand For Canadian Wood Soars
----from FDM Aisa, February, 09
Vancouver, Canada: Chinese buyers have been purchasing more wood from British Columbia loggers and sawmills, due to the fore-coming tax increase on Russian logs.
Canadian-based Tolko Industries have seen sales pick up in October 2008. Chinese buyers are looking to replace Russian timber supply that will become too expensive to buy in January 2010. They doubled their September purchases from the privately held western lumber maker.
More than 60 percent of the logs imported by Chinese sawmills come from Russia. The Russian government wanted to develop its domestic wood manufacturing industry, and have added a 25 percent export tax on logs earlier this year, increasing to 80 percent in January 2010.
In China, imports of Russian logs have declined by 25 percent this year. This allows Canadian producers, who have an excess of raw materials due to the slow demand in North American lumber markets, to boost sales. The latest figures from Statistics Canada show shipments of softwood lumber to China more than doubled in the first eight months of the year.
Tolko cuts lumber in 16-foot lengths, but has begun making the four-meter or 13-foot-lengths preferred in China. Some mills are switching over to metric lengths for days at a time, and others are even manufacturing metric sizes alongside standard tow-by-four.
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Wood, Machines and Furniture: January – September 2008
----from XYLON INTERNATIONAL-N.01/2009
Thanks to the cooperation with the Acimall Studies Office we will provide our readers all over the world with a new feature giving precise and updated indications on the export trends of the most important countries of the wood-machine-furniture system. It is important to say that the figures analyzed refer to the period January-August 2008, before the global slowdown of the economy started in September. According to the analysis of the market of woodworking machinery the main manufacturers recorded a positive trend, in particular China which experienced an increase by 32 percent during the last year. Yet the absolute value of export is still limited as compared to the volume exported by Italy or Germany.
The wood market (logs, sawnwood and panels) recorded contrasting trends: from one side China, Germany and The United States showed very positive results, while on the other side Brazil recorded a shrinkage and – in the last year – Canada collapsed. The Furniture industry, on the contrary, confirmed the positive trend of the leading manufacturers with generally high rates; France is among the most important destination markets as to export.
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