Industry players in Malaysia are urged to make full use of timber from planted forests to produce high value-added products such as engineered wood panels and furniture.
The Sarawak Timber Industry Development Corporation (STIDC) said that timber from planted forests can be used to produce veneer, plywood, sawnwood, wood chips, medium-density fibreboard (MDF), particleboard and furniture.
In the future, STIDC anticipates wood from planted forests will be used to produce engineered wood including laminated veneer lumber (LVL), cross laminated timber (CLT) and glue-laminated timber (glulam) and other panel products such as oriented strand board (OSB).
Under the state’s Post COVID-19 Development Strategy 2030, STIDC said the timber industry was identified as an important economic sector to generate RM8bn in export earnings annually. The STIDC urged the timber industry to embrace transformation from primary to high value-added processing.
STIDC said the Sarawak government is taking proactive steps in meeting the needs of the timber industry by ensuring sustainable and renewable supply of raw materials. To achieve this the government will embark on planted forest establishment through smart partnerships with the private sector.
At present, there are 50 active Licences for Planted Forests (LPFs) with an area of approximately 2.89 million hectares throughout the state. As of December 2022 over 500,000 hectares of plantations had been established. The main species planted are Acacia spp, followed by Batai (Falcataria moluccana), Eucalyptus spp. and Kelampayan (Neolamarckia cada).
Source: ITTO
