Review Of The Global Timber Market in The First Half Of 2022

In recent years, under the influence of repeated epidemics, weak market, rising costs, exchange rate fluctuations, real estate boom and the timber trade policies of various countries, timber supply chains have been interrupted and supply and demand imbalances have occurred from time to time, putting enormous pressure on the global timber market. Let's review the development of the global timber market in the first half of 2022.

Under the international situation, changes in export policies of some countries have affected the flow of global timber trade. Currently, Norway has replaced Russia as the EU's largest supplier of softwood logs.

From January to May this year, Norway's timber supply to EU countries increased by 42% to 2.1 million cubic meters, accounting for 60% of the EU's total softwood log imports. During the same period, Russia's log exports to the EU fell sharply to 563,000 cubic meters, a drop of 72%.

Since the beginning of this year, China's timber market has been showing a trend of "weak demand, rising inventories, falling prices, rising costs, declining revenue and declining profits". While the market is recovering, the demand for wood moulding is also increasing. However, the weak market demand is still unable to support the effective recovery of the log market. Affected by this, both timber prices and imports have declined, and domestic timber trade has slowed down.

According to data from the General Administration of Customs, in June 2022, China imported a total of 2.976 million cubic meters of cork logs, a year-on-year decrease of 36.8%; the import value of cork logs fell by 32.2% year-on-year to US$526.8 million; the average price of cork logs increased by 7.3% to per $177.0 per cubic meter.

Looking at the second half of 2022, the timber market is still improving. With the gradual weakening of the impact of the epidemic and the gradual emergence of favorable infrastructure policies, the overall market demand for timber will begin to increase. Industry insiders predict that from 2021 to 2030, the global timber market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 3.5%. The growth of the market will be attributed to the growing demand for wood from the construction and furniture industries, and the price of wood will also rise in line with the increase in demand.