The value of softwood logs and lumber exported to China from North America exceeded US$1.6bn in 2010, according to Wood Resource Quarterly. This figure, it said, was 150% higher than in 2009 and more than 10 times higher than in 2006.
Lumber shipments from Canada to China have risen seven-fold in the last three years and are expected to approach the four million m³ mark in 2010. Canada is now China’s main softwood lumber supplier, overtaking Russia in the fourth quarter of last year.
The US, meanwhile, is now the third largest softwood log supplier to China, after Russia and New Zealand. Whereas in 2007 the US exported less than 100,000m³ to China, the figure for 2010 was an estimated 2.4 million m³.
