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European Plywood Suffers Severe OSB Market Competition
¡¾2002.07.03¡¿

European Plywood Suffers Severe OSB Market Competition

Reporting on the FEIC General Assembly beginning June 2002 in Lahti, Finland, FEIC President Mr Franois Allin (Allin S.A., France) announced that the overall European plywood and blockboard production during 2001 amounted to some 3.3 million m3, which denotes a slight decrease of 1.2% compared to the record year 2000. Obviously, the upward trend of the plywood industry came to a minor slow-down. Therefore, the spectacular rise of 30% last year could no longer be maintained. Finland still dominates the overall European plywood production with a share of 36%.
Regarding the specific plywood production, Mr Allin announced an increase of 2.7%, mainly thanks to the revival of the Finnish plywood production that grew by over 6%. Plywood imports amounted to just under 5 million m3, whereas exports reached almost 2.2 million m3. This corresponds with an increase of 5% for imports and a negligible decrease of 0.5% for exports respectively.
Expanding somewhat more on the current market developments, Mr Allin indicated that structural plywood continues to face severe competition from OSB. Furthermore, imports from Brazil into Europe increased with 10% to 1.1 million m3, whereas imports from Indonesia weakened. The imports of Okoumé plywood from China are increasing rapidly and are distorting the traditional European markets. The FEIC members therefore decided to initiate an anti-dumping action with the European Commission.
The main application areas of plywood continue to be construction, furniture, transport, shipbuilding and flooring, including a wide range of specific value-added niche markets.

Source: FEIC/ (MF)