Hard facts, but some hope too

The other key statistic is for EU imports of tropical timber. According to latest figures from Forest Industries Intelligence, they have now fallen below the psychologically significant 1 million m3 a year mark.

Both numbers make grim reading, but reports and comments in our Swedish focus this week, and potentially ground-breaking developments in EU tropical timber promotion, give some cause for hope that they may both represent low points, or thereabouts.

Mikael Eliasson does not mince his words about life and times in Sweden's timber sector. The director of the Swedish Wood promotional body acknowledges that the UK's most important single softwood supplier has been through the mill .

The industry, he says, is in a "very challenging period". It's been hit three ways. European recession has impacted demand and curtailed producers' ability to increase prices. Exports have been further undermined by the strong krona. And, in an added blow, mills in the south are still facing the aftermath of the colossal storms of 2005 and 2007 in the form of reduced cutting levels.

Individual mills also front up to just how challenging business has been and say they've had to take tough measures to balance the books and bold new steps to adapt to the market. Strategies have included cutting jobs, curtailing output, relocating production to lower labour cost countries, even axing plants. At the same time, the Swedish industry has reduced reliance on Europe by cultivating business in emerging economies and developed economies emerging more rapidly from recession. It has also focused investment firmly on increasing verstility and efficiency.

While it's been difficult, however, and the restructuring continues, what is emerging, say the Swedes, is a leaner, fitter, more responsive, and value-adding-focused industry, which is better equipped for tough times, and better placed to capitalise on recovery.

They also see signs of the latter filtering through, and not just in newer markets. The combination of their new strategies and glimmers of improvement in construction is also making them cautiously optimistic for prospects in the UK. Among evidence for this, Södra aims to develop UK sales of its Interiör planed products and Stora Enso points out that its new Hull terminal site has room to grow. And in the biggest Anglo-Swedish news this week, SCA has announced plans for a £5m planing mill on Humberside.

Prospects for a pick-up in tropical timber sales in Europe are less clear cut, but its backers are aiming for the EU Sustainable Tropical Timber Coalition (STTC) to have a significant market impact. The brainchild of Dutch government-backed agency IDH, the initiative is a response, not just to the effect of recession on European tropical timber sales, but fears that the anti-illegal timber EU Timber Regulation will further depress demand due to concerns that tropical material is higher risk. The STTC will bring together industry, NGOs, central and local government across the EU (including the UK) in efforts to educate the market that sustainable and legal tropical timber is not only available, but that buying it underpins sustainable forest management. The ambitious goal is to boost EU's certified tropical timber imports 30% by 2015.