The IMM project has completed its activities under the contract between the EU and ITTO. As of January 1, 2023, this website is no longer maintained.
ITTO will publish the final quarterly report for 2022 in the first half of 2023 and will maintain the STIX database and dashboard (www.stix.global). For more information visit: www.itto.int.
News related to market developments
EU27+UK imports of tropical timber products from countries not engaged in the VPA process were making strong gains during 2018 and the first half of 2019, but in the case of Brazil and China, there was a significant slowdown in trade in the second half of 2019 which continued into the first quarter of 2020.
Of the three VPA negotiating countries in Africa, Gabon is the largest supplier to the EU27+UK. After declining in 2017, EU27+UK imports from Gabon in the next two years were very volatile on a monthly basis but overall, on an annual basis, were flat at around US$190 million.
The two countries in Latin America that recently completed VPA negotiations, Guyana and Honduras, are currently only small suppliers of timber to the EU.
EU27+UK imports of wood products from Vietnam, the only VPA implementing country in Asia, which were flat in 2016 and 2017, increased consistently throughout 2018 and the first nine months of 2019, before levelling off in the last quarter of 2019 and first quarter of this year.
EU27+UK imports of wood furniture from Indonesia made large gains in the second and third quarter of 2019 and maintained this high level through to the end of March 2020.
Wood furniture from Indonesia maintained its position at the top of the league of the largest gains in EU tropical wood product imports in the twelve months to March 2020.
Having reached the highest level in more than a decade in October 2019, EU trade in tropical wood and wood furniture products slowed in the last two months of the year, a trend which accelerated in January and February this year. Contrary to expectations, with the large western European countries implementing COVID-19 lockdown measures during …
COVID signal missing in EU27+UK import data for Q1 2020 Read More »
It is ironic that in 2019, just before the market chaos created by COVID-19, the EU27+UK recorded its strongest year for tropical timber product imports since 2007. That was, of course, when the last consumer boom was at its peak just prior to the market meltdown of the financial crises.
