Chris Williams of Panda Panel Agencies put the case for Chinese plywood at this week’s Plywood Club of London meeting.
He told members that plywood has been manufactured in China since the 1950s and that until recently the mills were all state owned, inefficient and lacking in investment.
However, the number of plywood mills in China was now in excess of 6,000, with installed production capacity more than 10 million m3.
Log production, which reached 51 million m3 in 2001, was predicted to increase and with plywood exports currently running at about one million m3 per year, China had become a serious competitor in the global plywood market.
Mr Williams said: “It seems inevitable that tropical plywood producers will see more of their traditional markets under attack from plywood manufactured in part from imported tropical logs and/or tropical veneer.”
“It seems inevitable that tropical plywood producers will see more of their traditional markets under attack from plywood manufactured in part from imported tropical logs and/or tropical veneer. ” |
Chris Williams, Panda Panel Products. |
He said Chinese plywood was a consistent, good quality product but, while it was manufactured in the Far East, it should not be misrepresented as “Far Eastern Plywood”.
China, he concluded, was a major new source of plywood which could be here to stay.