In 2008, China's wood industry was strongly impacted by the international financial crisis. Based on statistics from China Customs, imports of logs dropped for the first time, while sawnwood imports continued to rise. A total of 29.57 million cubic metres of logs valued at $5.182 billion were imported in 2008, down 20% by volume and 3% by value from 2007. These results, which have never been seen in the last 10 years, largely resulted from low demand for international furniture and plywood, as ITTO informed Lesprom Network.
Another reason causing the reduction of imports was Russia's increased export tariff, which led to a sharp drop in China's imports of Russian logs.
On the other hand, China's imports of sawnwood continued to increase. A total of 7 million cubic metres of sawnwood valued at $2 billion was imported in 2008, up 9.6% by volume and 15% by volume, respectively, from 2007. This was mainly caused by rising prices over the period. With prices of logs increasing, some manufacturers used sawnwood as materials instead of logs.
As a large producer of wood-based panels, China had historically ranked first in the world in terms of outputs of plywood and fiberboard. In recent years, however, China's imports of wood-based panels have dropped.
China exported 7.18 million cubic metres of plywood in 2008, down 18% by volume and 5% by value from 2007 levels. The country also exported 1.88 million tons of fiberboard in 2008, down 18% by volume and up 1% by value from 2007 levels.
Due to the rapid economic development and improvement of living standards in China, imports of high-grade wooden furniture have been growing steeply, reaching a peak of $312 million in 2008, up 41% from 2007. However, due to the severely declining economic conditions in some developed countries, especially the US, exports of wooden furniture in China dropped 14% from 2007 levels. The export value of China's wooden furniture rose slightly (3%) due to rising unit prices. Nevertheless, statistics from China Customs showed wooden furniture as the most important exported product in China's forest products trade, with its export value accounting for 36% of the nation's total export value of wood products in 2008.
In 2008, a total of 9.52 billion tons of pulp (including a small amount of non-wood pulp) valued at $6.7 billion were imported, up 12% by volume and 21% by value from 2007. A total of 24.2 million tons of waste paper were imported, valued at $5.55 billion and rising 7% by volume and 37% by value of 2007. Imports of these two paper materials accounted for 26% and 21% of the total import value of wood products in China. However, imports and exports of both paper and paperboard fell in 2008. With the rapid development of the domestic paper industry, demand for foreign paper products decreased gradually. Additionally, in light of the global financial crisis, demand from international markets has remained depressed. |
