Roundwood

With weaker demand for lumber around the world, sawlog prices fell in a majority of the 21 markets tracked by the Wood Resource Quarterly (WRQ). The Global Conifer Sawlog Price Index (GSPI) declined in the 3Q for the first time since the 1Q/09.

With a few exceptions, prices fell in both local currencies and in US dollar terms. The only region that saw any substantial price increase in the 3Q was British Columbia, where prices were up 5-7 percent from the 2Q. This region has benefited from higher lumber exports and production has gone up during 2011.

Seattle, WA, October 20, 2010 -- Continued increases in demand for wood raw-material from sawmills, plywood plants and pulp mills in China has pushed domestic log prices upward and many Chinese companies are increasingly exploring the opportunities of importing more logs and wood chips to supplement the domestic fiber sources.

Lumber shipments from Canada alone could reach 1.2 billion dollars this year. The North American share of log and lumber import volumes to China has increased from four percent in 2005 to 18 percent in 2010.

The US and Canada have been exporting record volumes of logs and lumber to China in 2011. The Wood Resource Quarterly predicts that exports in 2011 will double those seen in 2010 to reach an estimated value of 2.6 billion dollars.

As part of FLEGT Asia’s information collection role, a number of forest governance, markets and trade Baseline Studies have been carried out in the region. This study is done for China.

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Keywords: International forest products markets, c. National Policy & Legislation, e. Deforestation & Degradation Drivers, Other Publications, Asia, China, EU, FLEGT, market, timber, VPA

Over recent weeks, export log markets have continued to react to oversupply with inventories building and softening prices. This situation of supply being well out of balance with demand is now very pronounced in China and India, and to a lesser extent in Korea and Japan. Irrespective of whether the primary reasons are due to high inventory/slowing demand or pricing being indexed to China, domestic log and processed product prices have decreased across all markets and general trading conditions have become far more challenging than earlier in the year.