A timber truck fully loaded with logs drives over a very simple wooden bridge in a forest.

Institute of

WF Forestry

World timber trade

The advancing globalization of markets and the internationalization of policies related to forest and timber have increasingly brought the global timber trade flows into the public eye. We have been analyzing data on global trade in wood products at regular intervals since 1993 in order to make visible how the world trade flows in wood products are structured and how they change over time.

wood chips

wood pulp

finished wood products

wood based panels

deciduous roundwood

coniferous roundwood

deciduous sawnwood

coniferous sawnwood

finished paper products

paper and paperboard

other wood residues

Regions

For 2016, we determined an import-side world trade volume of wood and wood-based products of 1.98 billion m³(r). Europe had the largest internal trade among the eight timber trade regions with a share of 31% of the total world trade. In trade between the regions, Asia (excluding Southeast Asia and India), and above all the People's Republic of China, is the most important hub.

Downloads

Chart_Weltholzhandel_Detail.pdf 6 MB
Chart_Weltholzhandel_Gesamtueberblick.pdf 600 KB

Veröffentlichungen

Weimar H (2011) Der Holzfluss in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2009 : Methode und Ergebnis der Modellierung des Stoffflusses von Holz. Hamburg: vTI, 36 p, Arbeitsber Inst Ökon Forst Holzwirtsch vTI 2011/06
PDF Dokument (nicht barrierefrei) 1659 KB

Methodik

For our analyzes we use information from international databases such as UN Comtrade or Eurostat. We record the trade flows both in terms of quantity and value. For a uniform representation of the volume flows, we convert the quantities into the unit raw wood equivalent [m3(r)]. For our analyses, we take into account the trade in raw wood, waste wood, sawn timber, wood-based materials, other semi-finished wood products, finished wood products, wood and pulp, paper and cardboard, finished paper products and regenerated cellulose. To show global trade flows, we divide the world into eight regions.

Contact person - staff member

Dr. Holger Weimar

Institute of Forestry

Leuschnerstraße 91
21031 Hamburg-Bergedorf

Telephone: +49 40 739 62 314 | +49 531 2570 1463
Email: holger.weimar@thuenen.de

Head of Working Area Forest Products Markets

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