The next few years will see a major change in the Finnish forest industry, as Russia and Belarus are out of the European market. The situation is plaguing the markets and supply chains for forest products, and all countries are looking for new sellers of raw materials and buyers of end products. This also affects Finnish companies in many ways.
There are busy times ahead in Finnish forests, when Russian wood imports will be replaced by domestic wood. However, the decline in wood use in the Finnish forest industry this year will provide some respite. Harvesting volumes are expected to increase to almost 70 million cubic meters next year, and timber trade volumes and prices will also rise.
One of the biggest effects of the Russian offensive war on the Finnish forest sector is the stagnation of wood imports. Nine million cubic meters of wood were imported by Finland from Russia last year, accounting for 75 percent of the volume of imported wood. Imports were mainly birch and wood chips. The replacement of Russian wood is ahead, partly from Finnish forests and partly by increasing imports from elsewhere, such as the Baltic countries.