Wood product trade surplus grows in first half of 2016 Brazil’s wood product trade surplus totalled US$3.3 billion in the first half of 2016, an increase of 12% over the same period of last year. Total revenue from exports of sawnwood, panels, pulp and paper for the first half year amounted to US$3.8 billion up slightly from the same period in 2015.
Exports of wood-based panels in the first half were 443,000 cu.m, compared to 289,000 cu.m in the same period in 2015, a 53% increase. Pulp exports grew to 6.4 million tonnes, a 16% increase over the same period in 2015. Paper exports increased just over 7% to top 1.1 milion tonnes between January and June 2016.
Exports of Brazilian pulp continue to grow, especially to China, which was the main market in the first half of 2016. A noticeable trend has been the effort of the pulp, paper and wood based panel industries to focus on exports as the strategy to partially offset the decline in domestic demand.
Domestic sales of wood-based panels totalled 3.2 million cu.m in the first half, down 4.2% compared to the same period last year. Domestic sales of paper totalled 2.6 million tonnes, being at about the same level as in the first half of 2015.
July export performance
In July 2016, Brazilian exports of wood-based products (except pulp and paper) fell marginally compared to levels in July 2015, from US$237.4 million to US$ 237.0 million.
On the other hand, the value of pine sawnwood exports increased 0.7% year on year from US$27.6 million in 2015 to US$27.8 million in the first half of this year. In terms of volume, exports of pine sawnwood increased 18.5% over the same period, from 124,000 cu.m to 47,000 cu.m.
Similarly, tropical sawnwood exports increased 19.6% in volume, from 27,100 cu.m in July 2015 to 32,400 cu.m in July this year and but the value of exports rose just 9% from US$13.6 million to US$14.8 million, over the same period.
Brazil’s pine plywood exports declined in July 2016 (-1%) in comparison with exports in July 2015, from US$34.2 million to US$33.9 million but the volumes shipped jumped almost 27% from 102,900 cu.m to 130,300 cu.m, during the same period.
As for tropical plywood, July 2016 exports increased 31% in volume (from 9,700 cu.m to 12,700 cu.m) and export revenues increased around 9% from US$4.6 million to US$5.0 milion.
It came as a disappointment that July 2016 exports of wooden furniture fell around 6.5% year on year.
