Summary
¦ Global WoodMart in Kuala Lumpur in October attracted 108 exhibitors and 2,046 visitors.
¦ Over half the exhibitors and more than 22% of visitors were from outside Malaysia.
¦ Temperate softwood and hardwood suppliers from North America, Europe, and Australasia were looking to tap into South-east Asian markets.
¦ The next WoodMart takes place in 2012.

Malaysia might not be the first country that springs to mind as a natural market for radiata pine construction products and prefabricated building systems. But that’s what New Zealand companies were promoting at the inaugural Global WoodMart exhibition in Kuala Lumpur in October – and their presence underlined the aims and ambitions of the new show and the changing nature of the Malaysian timber sector.

The emphasis of the two-day event, organised by the Malaysian Timber Council (MTC), was very much on the word Global, but not simply in terms of being a shop window for Malaysian timber and wood products to buyers from abroad. WoodMart was also an opportunity for overseas suppliers to sell their products and services to the Malaysian market and visitors from elsewhere in South-east Asia. It emphasised that the region is an ever more significant wood consumer as well as a supplier.

Malaysia itself imports sizeable volumes of timber and wood products. Its total last year hit US$640m and, according to plantation and commodities minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok in his WoodMart opening address, this figure is set to rise exponentially over the next decade.

The Malaysian timber industry has an annual export target of RM53bn (US$17bn) for 2020, against this year’s forecast total of RM22m. It is also aiming for 60% of overseas sales to comprise value-added processed and manufactured products, as opposed to commodity timber and sheet materials. That compares to 40% currently. At the same time, increasingly restrictive environmental forest management controls will put a ceiling on growth in timber production from Malaysia’s natural forest. This will be offset by a massive forest plantation programme, aiming to increase the country’s total by 375,000ha by 2020 to give it an additional 75 million m³ of logs a year. But the planned boom in wood products output, will also mean buying in more raw material from around the world.

Imports both of raw timber and manufactured goods will also be boosted by growing consumption in the increasingly affluent Malaysian domestic market.

So the ambition, said Mr Dompok, was to make WoodMart a “one-stop selling, buying and networking platform for suppliers and buyers of timber products from around the world”.

“The event will also promote and encourage the wider application and use of timber [in Malaysia] from other sources around the globe,” he said.

International audience

The show concept clearly struck a chord across the international industry. Of the total of 2,046 visitors, around 22% came from abroad. There were predictably strong showings in buyers from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, but there were significant numbers too from Australia, India, the UAE, China and Japan. The biggest European contingent, a total of 10 visitors, came from the Netherlands. The UK was next with nine.

Of the 108 exhibitors, 50 were from outside Malaysia and, further highlighting the show’s foreign supplier appeal, it was sponsored by The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) and the French Timber marketing organisation. The UK Timber Trade Federation also took a stand, manned by member companies.

The New Zealand businesses, which exhibited on the stand of Malaysian importer and exporter APP Timber and were backed by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, acknowledged they had to educate the tropical market to accept softwood construction products.

But Tom Boon, chief executive of solid and engineered radiata specialist Taranaki Pine said that their products did attract a lot of interest, once they’d “broken down perceptions that radiata is a disposable product” and got the message across that it is up to the heat and humidity and “can perform as well as hardwood” .

“To an extent we’re here to learn about the market, but evidence is already mounting that this is a region with a lot of potential for us,” he said. “We’ve found visitors very receptive of our products. There’s concern, perhaps, that it’s a whitewood, which they’re less used to here, so we may look at using various stains. That aside, we see good possibilities for selling finger-jointed cladding, and laminated beams for applications such as garden buildings, car ports and structural elements for housing.”

Learning experience

Timberbond, which supplies laminated products from 1m balusters to 30m structural beams, also viewed WoodMart as a “learning experience”, but director Stuart McCallum already feels there are strong prospects for temperate construction timber in Malaysia.

“Being here is a long-term investment,” he said. “It may take two years before we see a return in terms of orders, but the interest is there. In particular, we’re getting leads from architects who are fascinated by designing in glulam, but don’t yet know how to put it together.”

Later that week, he added, he was giving a presentation at a seminar on “Glulam in the Building Industry” organised by APP Timber for the Malaysian Institute of Architects. The event, which was also addressed by Tony Neilson, editor of Australian wood building magazine TimberDESIGN, attracted 190 delegates.

Intalok director John Lemm was equally upbeat about prospects for his company’s solid radiata panel and steel-pin construction system.

“We’ve supplied projects in the Maldives and Tahiti, so there’s no problem with coping with the climate,” he said. “Malaysia and the rest of South-east Asia are cost-conscious markets, so maybe we’ll look to supply the raw material and have the system made locally under licence.”

American hardwood’s target Malaysia

Speaking on behalf of AHEC, Michael Buckley of the Turnstone Singapore consultancy said Malaysia had become a “major target” for the American hardwood sector.

“Firstly it doesn’t have enough raw material of its own to reach its wood products export goals,” he said. “Plus their furniture and flooring customers in markets such as Japan and Europe want products in temperate species, like oak and maple.”

One of the companies on the AHEC group stand, Robinson Lumber, has sold relatively small volumes to Malaysia. “But we see a lot of scope for building up our presence here and WoodMart as the opportunity to increase our exposure,” said senior vice-president Toto Robinson. “We’ve seen a lot of interesting people here, and not only Malaysians; buyers from other South-east Asian countries too.”

APP Timber managing director Michael Hermens also saw the Malaysian furniture, flooring and joinery (notably door) sectors using growing volumes of softwoods “as local hardwood alternatives”.

“Besides industrial end users, we see construction companies increasing their consumption,” he said. “Because they’re not familiar with the product, part of our role will be providing technical information and help with timber construction design issues.”

Currently, he added, APP is importing 250 containers a month (60% hardwood, 40% softwood) and turning over US$25m. It expects sales to double in five years.

Oak interest

On the French Timber (FT) stand hardwood specialist Eurochêne saw visitors from as far afield as Australia and India. “We’ve had particular interest in our long, unedged oak boards, but we see prospects for beech here too,” said president Eric Julien.

FT managing director Jean-Francois Guilbert added that WoodMart filled a gap in Asian trade events. “There are good shows elsewhere in Asia, but not the south-east, and WoodMart is well placed geographically,” he said.

A spokesman on the Ghanian Forestry Commission stand viewed the show as a vehicle for promoting his country’s hardwood “across Asia”. “We’ve spoken to visitors from a range of countries, and from the furniture and joinery sectors to construction,” he said. “And when we start supplying timber under our EU Voluntary Partnership [legal harvesting] Agreement licence next year, we expect interest to grow.”

Among the other Malaysian exhibitors, the stands of the country’s BioComposites Centre, composites specialist Perceptive Profile, palm flooring producer Polypalm Wood Products and finger-jointed mouldings, scantling and glulam manufacturer Konsortium Peka highlighted their industry’s accelerating diversification into new products and ambition to present them to the international market.

Meanwhile Malaysian decking and flooring producer ATH showed WoodMart living up to its billing as a “buying and selling” platform. The company was there both to promote its own products and to meet temperate hardwood exhibitors.

MTC chief executive Cheah Kam Huan said the event had “exceeded all expectations” and promised an “even better show” in October 2012.