November 22, 2023
(press release)
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Furniture shopping complex in Beijing, China. Photo: Tan Xiufeng 20 November 2023: China’s timber industry saw an increase in orders and production last month, according to the October 2023 edition of the Global Timber Index (GTI) Report, released today. The GTI Report tracks the timber sector in seven pilot countries around the world. China’s GTI increased by 17.9 percentage points in October, to 55.2% (a GTI value above 50% indicates growth in the sector). The Chinese government has rolled out a series of policies since early this year to support the development of the real-estate and household-furnishing industries, including the “Notice on Several Measures to Promote Household Furnishing Consumption” and the “Circular on Optimizing Criteria for the Recognition of Housing Units in Personal Housing Mortgage”. These policies appear to be having an impact in driving growth in the Chinese timber market. The GTI-Brazil subindex of new export orders increased by 15.8 percentage points in October, with harvesting, production and orders all showing signs that declines are slowing. The GTI-Congo harvesting subindex increased by 6.5 percentage points, indicating a slight improvement in wood supply. Indonesia’s new-orders subindex increased by 14.8 percentage points in October, suggesting improvement in demand. The news is not so positive for the other pilot countries. The GTI indexes for Gabon, Malaysia and Mexico were still below 50% in October, indicating contraction, with low sales of logs, plywood, wood products and some other products and declining market prices. Enterprises in GTI pilot countries put forward new ideas and suggestions for promoting the development of the timber industry. For example, Mexican enterprises proposed that government agencies provide regular training on changes in regulations and also suggested strengthening trade links between industrialists and raw-material suppliers. Brazilian enterprises recommended an analysis of internal storage of finished products as a means for minimizing costs at port. Malaysian enterprises want to search for new markets of plantation-based sawn timber. The monthly GTI Report is available free at www.itto.int/gti
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