17.02.2023
ITTO has published its report on tropical timber markets for the first half of February.
The main issues discussed were the decline in log imports to China in 2022, which totaled 43.70 million cubic meters with a value of US$8.533 billion, down 31% in volume and 26% in value from 2021 (-38% for softwood log imports and -9% for hardwood logs), the record exports of wood products recorded in Indonesia in 2022 including panels and furniture, the lack of announcement by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation regarding the continuation of the logging ban in 2023 and 2024 in Myanmar, the stability of tropical timber imports to the UK in 2022, significant growth in US tropical hardwood imports and a return to pre-pandemic levels of freight rates per container
Also in the headlines are the following topics: in Vietnam, VIFOREST (the Vietnamese Wood and Forest Products Association) forecasts a slowdown in wood and forest products export growth in 2023 and proposes measures and solutions for Vietnamese traders and manufacturers to cope with it, in Brazil in 2022, a decline in export revenues for the 300 Brazilian furniture manufacturers, members of the Bento Gonçalves-SINDMOVEIS Furniture Industries Union, wage increases for Japanese workers declared essential for post-pandemic recovery by economists.
