Forest Industries Intelligence

The European plywood market faces a combination of buoyant demand, mounting competition for product from other leading consumer countries, plus persistent supply delays and constraints among key producers, notably  tropical suppliers.

The slowdown in EU imports of tropical products, which began in 2016 and continued throughout last year, levelled off in the first quarter of 2018. Chart 1 shows twelve monthly rolling average imports (to iron out seasonal fluctuations) into the EU of all tropical wood products listed in HS Chapter 44 (excluding wood waste and chips). It shows that imports peaked at an average of 224,000 metric tonnes (MT) per month in September 2016, slipped to a low of 207,000 MT in January this year and recovered only slightly, to 209,000 MT, by March 2018 (Chart 1).

One prized commodity has been the object of log export protests on the Champs Élysées, a free trade legal challenge by the EU to the Ukraine and a packed recent European conference in London. That commodity is European oak.

EU imports of “continuously shaped” wood (HS code 4409) includes both decking products and interior decorative products like moulded skirting and beading. Total EU imports of hardwood products under this heading declined by just over 3% in 2017, to 122,800 metric tonnes (MT). However, imports from Indonesia and Brazil, the two largest suppliers, increased last year.

There was plenty of tropical wood furniture to be found at the first two big European furniture exhibitions of 2018 – the IMM interiors fair in Cologne, Germany (IMM-Cologne), and the January Furniture Show at the NEC in Birmingham, UK (JFS-Birmingham).

The EU imported 2.04 million m3 of sawn hardwood from outside the region in 2017, 13% less than the previous year. (Chart 1).

Plywood prices are rising sharply in the EU on the back of buoyant demand across the region and supply issues in a range of key exporting countries. There is also now an increasing tendency to order more just-in-time, little and often to hedge against the risk of the present ‘market bubble’ bursting. That summarises recent feedback from leading European plywood importers and distributors on trade and market trends.

The total value of EU imports of wood products was Euro 18.17 billion in 2017, 2.4% more than in 2016. This followed an increase of 1.3% to Euro 17.74 billion in 2016. In 2017 EU import value was at the highest level since 2008 just before the global financial crises (Chart 1).

Sawn hardwood distributors in Europe are reporting good levels of activity but this has yet to feed through into a significant rise in tropical sawn hardwood imports.

The European trade show season is now well underway, starting in Germany during January with the Domotex flooring show in Hanover and the IMM furniture show in Cologne. The shows provide good insights into European wood market prospects in the year ahead.