The major wood products exports from the US Northwest (logs) and British Columbia (lumber) to Asia have fallen in value by 18% during the first half of 2016. The biggest decline has been of softwood lumber from BC to China, which is on pace to be down by 50% in 2016 as compared to 2014.
Exportation of wood products from the North American west coast to Asia was fairly uneventful up until 2010 when shipment of particularly logs from the US and lumber from British Columbia took off to levels not seen for almost 20 years. From 2009 to 2013, the value of logs and lumber shipped over the Pacific Ocean surged from 1.7 billion dollars to 4.9 billion dollars. Since the record high in 2013, the total export value has fallen quite substantially and was just over 3.3 billion dollars in 2015.