The comment was made by Confor chairman George Webb at the organisation’s industry dinner, attended by 62 people, including Paul Wheelhouse, Scotland’s minister for environment and climate change.
"Against a background of the current economic climate and outlook, to be increasing wood production and wood conversion, to see continued significant capital investment and see increased exports of value added products, from our sector is very promising," he said.
Mr Webb told the dinner the UK home-grown sawn softwood sector had seen its market share of the overall UK sawn timber sector increase from 20% to 40% during the last five years.
But he admitted there remained a "massive challenge" as to how the industry would maintain and increase its output from the resources available.
"The lack of commercial conifer planting over the last two decades is very apparent and will reflect significantly on future wood availability."
He said Confor was working on an action plan to tackle this challenge.
