There was significant growth in EU import value of tropical wood flooring (+18.7% to €89.7 million) in the first eleven months of 2015. However, at 3.94 million sq.m, EU imports of tropical flooring were only 2% more than the year before.
Imports of wood flooring from tropical countries are also small in relation to both domestic production (around 63 million sq.m in 2014) and imports from China (18.7 million sq.m in 2014).
There was a rise in imports from both Indonesia and Malaysia, the two largest tropical suppliers of wood flooring to the EU.
Imports increased from Indonesia by 3% to 1.35 million sq.m and by 2% from Malaysia to 1.22 million sq.m in the first 11 months of 2015. Between October to November EU imports from Indonesia were slowing but picking up pace from Malaysia.
EU imports of flooring from Viet Nam also gained ground in the first eleven months of last year, rising 23% to 329,800 sq.m. Imports from Brazil also increased by 5% to 588,200sq.m. These gains offset a fall in imports from several smaller tropical suppliers of flooring to the EU including Thailand (-9%), Peru (-31%) and Hong Kong (-32%).
The rise in EU tropical wood flooring imports in 2015 is primarily due to France, by far the largest market for this commodity accounting for around one quarter of all EU imports. Imports into France increased 28% to 850,200sq.m in the first 11 months of 2015.
During the same period, there was a rise in tropical wood flooring imports by the UK (+1% to 498,098 sq.m), Italy (+6% to 408,855 sq.m) and the Netherlands (+39% to 330,440 sq.m). However imports declined sharply into Belgium (-30% to 540,169 sq.m) and Germany (-13% to 381,565 sq.m).
China is by far the largest external supplier of flooring products to the EU, much consisting of assembled multi-layers panels, and volumes over-shadow imports from tropical countries. An unknown proportion will contain tropical wood.
EU imports of wood flooring from China (including all products faced with real wood but excluding laminated flooring) were 16.0 million sq.m from January to November 2015, down 8% from 17.4 million sq.m in the same period of 2014. This follows a 5% gain in EU imports of Chinese flooring to 18.7 million sq.m for the whole of 2014.
In the first 11 months of 2015, EU imports of Chinese flooring were stable into the UK at 4.8 million sq.m and increased 10% to 1.2 million sq.m into Sweden.
However Chinese wood flooring imports were down 4% into Belgium at 2.7 million sq.m, down 21% into Italy at 1.9 million sq.m, down 6% into Netherlands at 1.8 million sq.m, and down 12% into Germany at 1.6 million sq.m.
The decline in EU imports of Chinese flooring in 2015 was therefore concentrated in euro-zone countries and is most likely due to the weakness of the euro which boosted the competitiveness of domestic producers.
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