In a year marked by uncertainties, Brazil’s timber industry ended 2016 with lower revenues even though export volumes were up.
Pine exports
Pine plywood export volumes in 2016 reached 1.7m cbm, a 16 percent increase compared to 2015 and the highest in the past 10 years. Monthly average plywood shipment was 144,206cbm, 24,000cbm more per month than in 2015.
Among the many destinations, USA tops the list, accounting for 28 percent of the total volume shipped, followed by the UK (16 percent), Belgium (11 percent), Germany (9.7 percent) and Mexico (almost 5 percent).
Pine sawnwood exports totalled 2.1m cbm. A large volume of pine sawn wood is used in domestic construction. The main buyers of Brazilian pine sawn wood were USA (42 percent), China, (13 percent) and Saudi Arabia (almost 7 percent).
Pine veneer exports were also 30 percent up year-on-year, reaching 70,514cbm in 2016. The main destinations were Malaysia (40 percent), South Korea (24 percent), and China (11.5 percent).
Tropical wood exports
Tropical plywood exports amounted to 62,803cbm, with the main markets being Argentina (26 percent), USA (17 percent), UK (12 percent), Italy (5 percent) and the Dominican Republic (5 percent).
The volume of tropical sawn wood exported in 2016 reached 657,576cbm and the main markets were the United States (21 percent), India (8.7 percent), the Netherlands (8.4 percent), China (8 percent) and Vietnam (5.6 percent).
According to the Brazilian Association of Mechanically Processed Timber Industry (ABIMCI), one of the major challenges that the industry will face in 2017 is how to improve business strategies to protect themselves against fluctuations in the domestic economy. Some of these challenges include rising cost of electricity, logistics and raw material.
Source: ITTO
