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.

Indonesian furniture imports during this period were US$70.2 million greater than in the previous 12-month period. Other Indonesian products amongst the largest gainers during this period were marquetry and joinery. For VPA implementing countries, significant gains were seen in imports of furniture, joinery and ‘other (not elsewhere specified)’ wood products from Viet Nam, and sawnwood from Republic of Congo. (Chart 1).

Less positive from a FLEGT perspective is that three Indonesian product groups – plywood, mouldings/decking and sawnwood – appear in the list of the biggest losers in EU27+UK tropical timber imports in the 12 months to March 2020. For VPA implementing countries there was a significant decline in imports of sawnwood and veneer from Cameroon. Other large decreases in EU27+UK imports during this period were recorded for Malaysian sawnwood, Chinese tropical hardwood faced plywood and Brazilian sawnwood (Chart 2). EU27+UK imports of all these products slowed dramatically in the last quarter of 2019 and first quarter of 2020.