Wood chips: steady increase in global trade

Steady increase in global trade of wood chips the past ten years; Japan and China imported 83 percent of traded hardwood chips in 2012, reports the Wood Resource Quarterly.The global pulp industry has increased its importation of wood chips the past ten years, reaching the second highest import levels on record in 2012. Japan, China, Finland and Turkey were the largest importing countries last year.
Wood chips are one of the few forest products commodities that have seen a steadily increasing trend in globally traded volumes the past decade. With the exception of 2009, when global production of pulp fell by about ten percent and the demand for wood fiber was down, international trade of wood chips has increased every year from 2000 to 2011.