Month: July 2020

As expected, following the UK lockdown in response to COVID-19 introduced on 24^th March and allowing for the long lead time in the tropical trade, there was a very sharp decline in UK imports of tropical timber products in May. The total value of UK imports of all tropical wood (HS 44) and wood furniture (HS 94) products during the month was just over US$50 million, only half the value typical in what is usually one the busiest months of the year for the UK trade (Chart 1).

EU27 (i.e. excluding the UK) tropical timber product imports continued to defy expectations of COVID-19 driven collapse in the four months to April this year. Despite all the large western European countries implementing COVID-19 lockdown measures starting in the second two weeks of March, and mounting supply-side problems in tropical countries, total imports of tropical wood and wood furniture products into in the EU in April were little changed compared to the previous month.