China Wood Products Prices
1-15th April 2004

Dollar Exchange Rates of 9th April 2004
China Yuan 8.28
Report from China  

Report from China

International Companies Establish Plantations  

China is a major consumer of wood products, ranked second in terms of logs, paper products and wood-based panels consumption after the US. China has been reducing domestic logging as it implements the Natural Forest Protection Program. However, domestic demand for wood products has been increasing strongly and the gap between timber supply and demand widened dramatically. To meet increasing demand, imports have increased and today, wood products such as paper pulp, paper products, logs and sawnwood, are major imports that have become a drain on national foreign currency reserves.

In order address to imbalance between supply and demand the Chinese government has prepared "Guidelines for Foreign Investment" which details how the country has adopted active measures to encourage investment in fast-growing and high-yielding plantations and bamboo. It also sets out measures aimed at encouraging investment in production capacity for pulp, paper, paper products and wood-based panels.

Because of this international timber companies are establishing plantations in regions such as Guangxi, Guangdong, Hainan, Hu'nan, Yun'nan, Jiangxi, Jiangsu and Fujian as either joint ventures or as direct investment.

The pulp paper giant, Finnish Stora Enso has reportedly signed an agreement with Guangxi's Gao Feng Group and will start a forest and paper project whose total investment is said to be in the region of US$1.6 billion and involves establishing 330,000 ha of plantations.

Ranked the tenth amongst international paper enterprises, Indonesia's APP has reportedly laid the foundations of a pulp and paper plant in Guangxi recently.  The project will produce some 600 000 tons of paper pulp annually. The ultimate goal is to create a chain of forest and paper mills with 600 000 ha of forestland, producing 1.2 million tons of wood pulp.

One of Japan's largest paper making enterprises, Oji Paper Co. Ltd, reportedly plans to establish 200,000 ha of eucalyptus plantations and it aims to establish a mil to produce 600,000 tons of paper pulp. The company has reportedly already completed 6,000 ha of plantation in Guangxi.

The Hong Kong company Jia Han Wood Co. Ltd plans to establish 350,000 ha of Eucaplyptus plantations and has already completed 20,000 ha in Guangxi and 30,000 ha in Guangdong, this will be used to produce mainly particleboard and MDF.

In addition to these investments many joint venture wood processing enterprises have also established plantation bases and set up wood-based panel mills. For example, "Liren European Science Wood-based Panel Co. Ltd " (formed by Zhejiang Liren Group and German Dieffenbacher Group) has plans to invest Yuan 300 million to establish a plantation base and aims to be a large scale enterprise producing 820,000 cubic metres of medium and high density fiberboard annually.

The Jiangsu Da Ya Group has apparently invested Yuan 250 million to establish Poplar plantation bases in Zhenjiang City and Danyang City of Jiangsu and the group plans to invest more than Yuan 5 billion to make Da Ya a world-class forest industry Group. They are expected to have some 133,000 ha of plantations.

Jiangsu Province, 20% of National Production

China's Jiangsu Province has virtually no natural forest but, as the economy has been developing fast, timber imports have increased. The ports of Zhang Jia Gang, Yang Zhou, Tai Cang, Lian Yun Gang, Jiang Yin, Chang Shu and Nan Tong now all handle timber imports. 

Jiangsu Province's timber imports have accounted for some 20% of the national total in recent years. According to the latest statistics, log imports to the province were 4,949,000 cubic metres valued at US$1.36 billion in 2002. During January to November of 2003, log imports amounted to 4.98 million cubic metres, a year on year increase of 9.8%. Of the total log imports Zhang Jia Gang port handled some to 3.8 million cubic metres, making it one of the largest timber import ports in China.

 Timber imports through Jiangsu's ports are of large volumes and from a wide range of suppliers. Imports have expanded from the traditional Southeast Asian sources to more than 30 countries and regions including Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and Oceania, Russia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Is, New Zealand, Gabon, Liberia, Cameroon, Congo, Mozambique, the US, Canada and Belgium. Of the various suppliers Russia, Malaysia, Gabon, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand stand out as the main timber suppliers to Jiangsu Province.

Only some of the imported logs are used in mills in Jiangsu, the rest are transported to other provinces in eastern China and a small quantity to southern China. Shanghai, Zhejiang and Shandong are the main consumer markets.

Guangzhou City Imported Timber Market

Shanghai Furen Wholesale Market 

 Hebei Shijiangzhuang Wholesale Market

 Shandong De Zhou Timber market

Tian Jin City Huan Bo Hai timber Market