Biz News Flash

Chinese demand boosts Canadian wood products industry

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-05-11 16:53

VANCOUVER -- China will play a huge role in keeping the Canadian forestry industry afloat in coming years, according to local industry representatives.

China's rapidly increasing demand for imported logs and timber dominated the conversation in a panel session focusing on the Asian market at the first annual Global Wood Products Industry and Markets Conference here Tuesday.

"This conference is reflecting the importance of the Chinese market, and it is also reflecting the expectation that the Chinese market is going to become a more and more important market for coastal British Columbia and the US Pacific Northwest area, both in logs and lumber," said Gerry Van Leeuwen, Vice President of International Wood Markets Group, the Vancouver-based timber and solid wood products consulting firm that hosted the one-day conference.

"China has become such a big market for BC and North American saw lumber, and now its becoming a big market for logs," he said.

According to Van Leeuwen, about 35 to 45 percent of British Columbian lumber is now exported to China, a seven to nine-fold increase in the past five years.

For many years, the Canadian lumber market has been dependent on the US market.

"Now we are depending more and more on China," Van Leeuwen said.

Jim Jia, President of LJ Resources Co, which specializes in selling Canadian forest products to China, presented to the conference's 150 participants from about 100 solid wood product companies from around the world.

Currently, Russia dominated softwood log imports to China, holding over 40 percent of the market in 2010, he said.

In lumber imports, Russia and Canada were nearly neck and neck, holding 29 and 27 per cent of the imports, respectively.

International Wood Markets Group has held several similar conferences focusing on solid wood products going into the global market over the past 10 years in various cities around the world, including several in China.

Leeuwen said the conference would run again in Vancouver next year, and Wood Markets hoped to see it become an annual event.