The volumes placed of the wood product do not seem to pick up so far this year due to the lack of buyer interest from China.
Pine exports collapsed 78% year-on-year in April after they reported 31,000 cubic meters placedcompared to the 140,000 cubic meters shipped during the same month last year. India continues to be the only destination for shipments of timber products due to the lack of buyer interest from China.
In terms of billing, the figures have set off the alarm throughout the Uruguayan forestry sector, since there was a 75% drop in turnovergenerating some $2.7 million last April, compared to 11.2 million dollars in the same month, but in 2022.
The pine crisis had already been noticed during the first quarter of the year, after the comparison with the first quarter of the previous year yielded negative results. With an uncertain outlook in the Asian market, exporters are somewhat pessimistic for the future.
As happened in February, India emerged as the country in charge of buying all pine exports, monopolizing the trade against a marked instability that several of the usual Chinese buyers are going throughwho have cut off the flow of shipments.
The fall in pine imports in China hits Uruguay
According to China General Administration of Customsduring the first quarter of 2023 log imports fell 7% yoy in volumeand 18% year-on-year in exports, with 9.27 million cubic meters for a total of 1,606 million dollars.
Nevertheless, New Zealandone of the direct competitors of Uruguay in the sale of pine logs to the Asian giant, managed to increase its volume exported to China by 13% during the first quarter of the year, compared to the same period in 2022.
Source: Ambito
