Wood exports increased significantly last year. Exports of raw oak and conifers were twice as high as in 2020. Exports of wooden furniture increased by 20%. However, the increased export of logs also affected the domestic wood processing industry, and it is similar in the European Union. The largest importer of wood is China, which is also the largest exporter of finished wood products.
The export of the wood industry last year was 1.4 billion euros. It accounts for 6.5 percent of total exports. Furniture and wood are exported as raw materials, mostly oak and conifers.
“When a lot of things are exported, then the price on the domestic market is more expensive for them because the offer is smaller simply because a lot is exported. For that reason, they have higher costs of purchasing raw materials for their production, primarily furniture. This simply presented the problem of sustainability of production of certain producers in Serbia from this sector “, points out Bojan Stanić from the Serbian Chamber of Commerce.
Wooden furniture is mostly exported to the countries of the former Yugoslavia and the EU, and China is the largest buyer of unprocessed wood.
“The question is why the state policy is not implemented, which is aimed at not giving all our raw materials related to wood pulp to our companies that are capable of producing top quality furniture and winning the highest possible profit for our entire country and society,” said the professor Ratko Ristic from the Faculty of Forestry.
Demand for wood will increase by 100 percent
The wood processing industry employs 55,000 people. Wood as a raw material is increasingly in demand due to new environmental regulations. It is estimated that the demand for wood as a raw material will increase by 100% in the coming decades.
“In general, we have a surplus of wood mass in our forests every year, growing about eight to eight and a half million cubic meters a year. We cut four to five million according to formal and informal data. So, every year we have a surplus of three to three and a half million. “However, that does not justify us that we have not fulfilled one of the most important goals, and that is the level of afforestation of Serbia of 41.4 percent by 2050,” Ristic emphasizes.
The largest importer of logs from Europe is China. For example, the export of wood from France to China has increased seven times in the last ten years, which has resulted in a jump in prices and problems with the supply of the domestic wood industry.
Imports of Chinese wooden furniture to the EU amount to about three billion euros in one year, Nova writes.
