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China Wood Products Price and Market Reports
01 – 15th Sep
2023


US Dollar Exchange Rates of  10th  Sep 2023
China Yuan
7.29
Report from China
 

 Investment in real estate development
The National Bureau of Statistics has reported that in the
first seven months of this year there was a year-on-year
decline of 8.5% in total real estate investment and that
investment in residential buildings was down by 7.6% year
on year.

New policy to prop-up property market
The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development,
the People's Bank of China and the General
Administration of Financial Supervision jointly issued a
Notice on ‘Optimizing the Identification Standards for the
Number of Housing Units in Personal Housing Loans’.
This promotes the implementation of policy measures on
"Recognizing housing without recognizing loans" for the
purchase of the first home.

Under this new system, even if a new buyer has once had a
loan, as long as the borrower’s current name does not
appear in the property registry they can apply for a
mortgage. Current sentiment in the residential property
markets in China's four first-tier cities has lifted as local
governments have announced policy changes to boost
demand. It is expected this measure will help stabilise the
property market.

Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou and Shenzhen in
Guangdong Provinces have eased credit rules for
homebuyers identifying people with no local ownership of
residential properties as first-time homebuyers eligible for
favorable mortgage conditions.

The new local definition of first-time homebuyers further
fueled sentiment. The cities decided that, regardless of
their previous home mortgage history, as long as members
of families (including borrowers, spouses and minor
children) applying for housing loans do not own any
apartment or home in the city they should be treated as
first-time homebuyers. The top-tier cities have seen
heightened activity in both downtown and suburban areas
as more pre-owned homes came onto the market.

New opportunities for building materials enterprises
The interior decoration and building materials industry is
characterised by "large industry, small enterprises". With
more pre-owned homes coming onto the market, demand
for interior decoration and building materials is still large.

Top ranked enterprises in the sector are expected to further
expand their market share while small companies that do
not have competitive advantages in terms of cost,
efficiency and innovation face greater pressure.

Analysts say that decoration and building materials
enterprises will usher in new development opportunities
under the continuous promotion of favorable policies. For
example, the renovation and construction of urban villages
requires a large amount of material including doors and
windows, tiles, floors etc. which has generated new market
demands providing more business opportunities and
cooperation opportunities for enterprises.

Most of the companies that achieve performance growth
are leading enterprises in the sector or enterprises with
strong core competitiveness.

Growth of the building materials industry promoted
China’s eight Departments jointly issued a ‘Work Plan for
Stable Growth of the Building Materials Industry’.

The operational revenue of enterprises in producing green
building materials and new materials will increase by
more than 10% per year according to the Plan. Production
capacity in energy efficiency standard levels for cement,
glass and the ceramics industries will account for more
than 15% of the expected growth.

The Plan also makes it clear that China will expand
investment and promote industrial transformation and
upgrading to improve supply and stimulate new growth
drivers in the industry to promote green building materials,
cultivate green consumption and deepen international
cooperation.

It is proposed to promote green transformation and fully
implement the ‘Plan for Carbon Peaking in the Building
Materials Industry’, support qualified regions and
enterprises to carry out green and low-carbon
demonstration zones and investigate effective models.

With a focus on cement, flat glass, building ceramics and
glass fibre industries China will secure energy-saving and
carbon reduction technology. China will deepen the
activities of selling green building materials in rural areas.

To expand the consumption of green building material
products in rural areas all localities are encouraged to
explore green building materials and promote the
development of green building materials activities.

China will organise pilot demonstrations of the application
of green building materials projects, guide key
construction enterprises to increase the application scope
and procurement of green building materials, promote the
coordinated development of green building materials and
green buildings, and increase the proportion of green
building materials used in the renovation of new buildings
and existing buildings.

China will improve the certification system for green
building materials, improve evaluation standard system of
green building materials products, further expand the
scope of implementation of green building materials
product certification and accelerate certification of green
building materials products, promote the interconnection
between green building materials product certification data
and relevant credit application databases and promote the
mutual recognition and common use of green building
materials product certification results among different
departments and levels.

See:
https://www.mohurd.gov.cn/xinwen/gzdt/202308/20230828_773789.html

First exports of mortise and tenon wooden doors
800 sets of RTA mortise and tenon solid wooden doors
were recently exported to North America from Qidong
County of Hengyang City in Hu’nan. This is the first
export of such products from Hunan Province.

See: https://news.cri.cn/n/20230908/376b47d4-61f4-b338-b8b1-5822416defa1.html

Nanxun wooden floor "paving" to the "Belt and Road"
Data show that the value of wood flooring exports along
the "Belt and Road" countries through Huzhou Customs
under Hangzhou Customs amounted to RMB300 million
between January to July 2023.

At present, Huzhou wood flooring enterprises have
successfully opened up markets in Thailand, Malaysia and
Vietnam along the "Belt and Road".

Nanxun District of Huzhou City in Zhejiang Province is
known as the "wood flooring capital of China". Wood
flooring industrial clusters have become the most active
economic industrial cluster in the area with more than
2,000 wood production and processing enterprises,
including more than 400 wood flooring enterprises.

GTI-China Index in August 2023
The latest data released by China’s General
Administration of Customs shows that in the first seven
months of this year the total value of China's imports and
exports reached 23.55 trillion yuan, a year-on-year
increase of 0.4%. Exports were 13.47 trillion yuan, an
increase of 1.5% while imports were 10.08 trillion yuan, a
decrease of 1.1%.

The GTI states in August the manufacturing sector in
China continued to improve.

With the release of the "Circular on Optimising the
Criteria for the Recognition of Housing Units in Personal
Housing Mortgage" at the end of August, Beijing,
Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the four major first-
tier cities in China, announced families that own no
property in the region are to be treated as first-time
homebuyers eligible for favorable mortgage conditions.

The change in the housing mortgage policy aims to
alleviate pressure on homebuyers and bring positive
momentum to the real estate market indirectly boosting the
timber and furniture markets.

In August this year the timber and wood products markets
in China showed a steady recovery trend but international
market demand had not fully recovered. Data shows that
the production volume and new orders of the industries
represented in the GTI-China increased compared to the
previous month but the number of export orders remained
low.

In August the GTI-China index recorded 52.6%, a
decrease of 0.4% compared to that of the previous month
and was above the critical value (50%) for 2 consecutive
months indicating that business conditions of the timber
enterprises represented in the GTI-China index expanded
from last month but at a slower rate.

See: https://www.itto-ggsc.org/static/upload/file/20230915/1694740138375092.pdf

Abbreviations

LM        Loyale Merchant, a grade of log parcel  Cu.m         Cubic Metre
QS         Qualite Superieure    Koku         0.278 Cu.m or 120BF
CI          Choix Industriel                                                       FFR            French Franc
CE         Choix Economique                                                        SQ              Sawmill Quality
CS         Choix Supplimentaire      SSQ            Select Sawmill Quality
FOB      Free-on-Board     FAS            Sawnwood Grade First and
KD        Kiln Dry                               Second 
AD        Air Dry        WBP           Water and Boil Proof
Boule    A Log Sawn Through and Through MR              Moisture Resistant
              the boards from one log are bundled                      pc         per piece      
              together                      ea                each      
BB/CC  Grade B faced and Grade C backed MBF           1000 Board Feet          
              Plywood   MDF           Medium Density Fibreboard
BF         Board Foot F.CFA         CFA Franc        
Sq.Ft     Square Foot               Price has moved up or down

Source:ITTO'  Tropical Timber Market Report

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