US Dollar Exchange Rates of
25th
Jun
2022
China Yuan 6.6898
Report from China
Log and sawnwood stocks accumulating at ports
After the 2022 February Spring Festival both log and
sawnwood stocks have been accumulating at ports but, due
to slow demand, the inventory of the major wood market
dealers has been running high. The ports are overstocked
with logs and the stock of logs at Taicang Port have
reached a record high of 1.7 million cubic metres,
resulting in a sharp drop in both logs and sawnwood
imports compared with last year.
According to China Customs, log imports were 18.04
million cubic metres valued at US$3.641 billion, down
30% in volume and 14% in value from January to May
2022. China¡¯s sawnwood imports fell 7% to 10.78 million
cubic metres.
In May alone, China¡¯s log imports amounted to 4.23
million cubic metres valued at US$888 million, down 20%
in volume and 14% in value. China¡¯s sawnwood imports
declined 11% to 2.26 million cubic metres. Because of
heavy rain in the south and high temperature in the north
the logs are degrading especially radiata pine logs.
Mid-year is a traditional off-season for the wood products
industry as many regions of China have a rain season. This
year the rain season arrived earlier than in previous years.
Depressed timber demand
It has been reported that prices for gasoline and diesel
have been raised which means higher transportation costs
for the timber industry and reduced profits for traders.
Market demand continues to be sluggish and has been
down since the beginning of the year.
The very changeable weather and the surging production
costs are disturbing wood product manufacturers.
Rise in transport cost for African timbers
A distinct trend in rising landed prices for timbers from
Africa has been especially noticeable for shipments from
Cameroon and Gabon and this has been put down to the
increase in oil price. It is expected that the cost of
imported African timber will continue to rise.
Manufacturers expect most of the increased costs to be
borne by the timber dealers as there is little opportunity to
raise prices for finished goods in the current depressed
market.
Campaign to promote green building materials in rural
areas
A campaign to promote green building material use in
rural areas was launched recently by many governmental
departments, associations and enterprises. The campaign
will take advantage of the public information platform
and JD online platform for green building materials (See:
http://greenbm.cbmf.org/) this identifies the first list of
products and enterprises for green building materials along
with identifying the national technical support institutions
and partners.
This campaign aims to create a green consumption
environment nationwide, advocate the concept of green
consumption, speed up the promotion of green building
materials in rural areas and enhance the support for green
consumption for sustainable economic development.
China has been accelerating research and development,
production and standard certification as the foundation to
promote consumption of green building materials and has
steadily improved the supply of green building materials.
At present eight green building material industrial zones
have been designated as national industrial demonstration
bases. China's supply capacity of green building materials
has been greatly improved. The national output value of
green building materials exceeded RMB65 billion in 2021.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and
other relevant departments will actively guide the
expansion of consumption of green building materials,
encourage the first choice of green building materials in
the renovation of rural housing, green buildings,
prefabricated buildings, ultra-low energy consumption
buildings and other engineering construction projects,
accelerate the promotion of green building materials
product certification, improve the green building materials
standard system, enrich the variety of green building
materials products, strengthen the supervision of product
certification and production application. At present, there
are 58 categories of green building materials products.
Retail sales steady
The National Bureau of Statistics has released details of
retail sales of consumer goods in the first four months of
2022. Between January and April total retail sales of
consumer goods dropped very slightly year-on-year (-
0.2%).
However, between January and April sales of furniture
dropped 14% and sale of building and interior decoration
materials fell 12%.
New standard on MDF
A new national standard on Middium Density Fibreboard
(MDF) has been introduced as off 1 June 2022. The
standard on MDF (GB/T 11718) was released for the first
time in 1999 and revised in 2009 and in 2021 (GB/T
11718-2021) and has been implemented as of 1 June 2022.
The test method of formaldehyde emissions has been
modified and the requirement of MDF for building
materials is added in the new national standard on MDF.
In the new standard the test method for "physical and
mechanical properties" basically refers to the relevant
provisions in "Test Method for Physical and Chemical
Properties of Wood-based Panels and Decorative panels"
(GB/T 17657-2013) with little change in other aspects.
In addition, explanation is provided on the size of the
sample that affects the test operation. In the judgment of
results, the calculation of 5% quantile value and 95%
quantile value is also introduced, so that each testing
institution can give the conformance judgment more
conveniently. In general, the new standard is more
scientific.
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