Cameroon, Malaysia, and Brazil, Europe’s top three suppliers of sawn tropical hardwood, each recorded significant growth in deliveries to the EU last year.
Cameroon was by far the largest single supplier of tropical sawn hardwood to the EU in 2015, accounting for almost one-third of all imports. EU imports from Cameroon were 339,000 cu.m last year, 12% more than in 2014.
There was solid growth in sales of Cameroon sawn hardwood to several EU markets in 2015 including France, Belgium, Spain, and Italy. These gains were sufficient to offset a decline in sales to the Netherlands, Germany and the UK.
EU imports from Malaysia were up 7% to 206,000cu.m in 2015, the rise being entirely due to much higher imports by the Netherlands. Most other EU countries recorded low or declining sawn hardwood imports from Malaysia last year.
European imports of sawn tropical wood from Brazil increased 14% to 128,000 cu.m in 2015. The main driving forces behind this increase were France, Belgium and, to a lesser extent, Germany.
Of other significant producer countries, there was doubledigit growth in tropical sawn hardwood imports into the EU in 2015 from Ghana (+15% to 55,000 cu.m), Indonesia (+22% to 29,000 cu.m), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (+27% to 26,000 cu.m).
However EU imports from Gabon fell 5% to 85,000 cu.m and imports from Congo declined 4% to 28,000cu.m.
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