It was announced in May that the UK arm of the industry body Canada Wood, operated by UK contractor The Wood Consultancy, would now focus on technical and market access issues, after undertaking active market development work for the last 11 years.
Director John Park stays on as a consultant, operating from his own office and providing advice to Canadian companies on EU market access and technical back up and sourcing information to UK specifiers and end users.
"The driving force behind this decision is that, while they remain important to Canadian producers, the UK and wider European markets have from an overall industry perspective, become peripheral in volume terms relative to the US and Asia, and Canada Wood only works with the necessary industry support," said Mr Park, who started work for British Columbia’s Council of Forest Industries (COFI) in 1991.
"Exports to China in particular have absolutely soared and, while the European tendency is just to take the good stuff, the Chinese buyers will buy absolutely everything. It’s not just a bigger market for them, being just across the Pacific Ocean, for British Columbia it’s easier too."
In 2013, he added, the UK imported around 25 million bd ft of Canadian timber and Europe as a whole 87 million bd ft.
"By comparison, Japan took 1.2 billion bd ft, China 3.3 billion, east Asia in total 5 billion and the US just short of 11 billion," said Mr Park. "It is on an entirely different scale."
Volumes in 2006 were 1.5 billion bd ft for Japan, 142 million in China, US 20 billion, EU 172 million and UK 57 million.
For the last two years Canada Wood has been a major sponsor of the UK Wood Awards, with contributions raised by the all-important cross-sector industry collaboration. "But this year they decided not to go ahead," said Mr Park.
Whether the Canadian industry would turn its focus more back to Europe in the future, he added, could not be predicted. "Who knows what may happen next year, or the year after," he said.
