Woodworking machinery industry in Mexico

With the commercial aperture, Mexican forest products have faced difficulties for accesing into the international market and maintaining their participation in internal markets; exports have decresed and imports increased (from Chile, Usa, Canada, Malaysia, etc), with a consequent increase in trade-balance deficit. The sawn timber industry, for example, the most important because of the volume that processes, as for the number of existent industrial plants, has been the most affected one. In the last six years, the lumber imports have increased significantly. This implies greater commercial dependence of this product, supplying great part of the lumber apparent national comsumption with imports coming from Chile, the United States, Brazil and Canada.
To reverse this tendency, it is urgent to implement a series of public policies aimed at strengthening this industry in the medium and short terms.
Otherwise negative effects are sure to show, such as greater pressure on natural forest, partial closing of sawmills, unemployment increase, and loss of an important source or revenue for the owners of the forest resource.
May be the category of the property can be a problem for the mexican forest industry; the pine industry, for example, is in communal hands.
70 percent of the consumption is from the imported woods. In the last 6 years are closed 600 companies in the wood industry.