For the European furniture sector, as in other industries, the COVID pandemic is casting a long shadow, with no certainty yet that the most dramatic swings in supply and demand are in the past. Several European countries, including France and Italy, were reporting record numbers of new daily COVID cases in the last week of January, the increase due to the emergence and rapid spread of the new Omicron variant, first detected in South Africa.
EU27 Tropical Wood Imports Slow Sharply In The Second Half Of 2021. ITTO European Market Report 15th January 2022
After reaching the highest level for nearly a decade in the first half of 2021, the US dollar value of EU27 imports of wood and wood furniture products from tropical countries declined sharply in July and August. After a brief revival in September, imports fell away again in October (Chart 1).