Finnish sawmillers were given a sales boost by exports of planed goods last year.

According to the latest industry report from the Finnish Forest Industries Federation, total sawn and planed goods output rose last year by 5% to 13.3 million m3. Exports of the products combined rose by 1% to 8.3 million m3, but within this figure planed goods jumped 9% to 1.1 million m3.

The Finnish domestic market grew only marginally, but deliveries of 5.3 million m3 – some of which were destined for further processing and exports in the form of glulam and other engineered products – still kept Finland among the world’s biggest consumers, with the annual per capita figure over 1.01m3.

On the downside, rising costs and static or falling prices made trading tough for mills. In fact average operating results fell to -0.6%. Sawn redwood producers fared better than whitewood mills, but both found it difficult to scrape a profit.

Finnish plywood mills managed to increase overall output by 8% to 1.2 million m3. This was accounted for entirely by the softwood plywood producers who increased production by 17% to 700,000m3. Birch plywood output fell 3% to 500,000m3.

The Finnish forest products giants saw combined turnover dip 2% in 2002 to €35.5m. Profits were hit by falling paper prices and fell to 2% of turnover compared to 8% in 2001.