China Wood Products Prices
1-15 March  2004

【March 2004】

Dollar Exchange Rates of 8th March.2004
China Yuan 8.28
Report from China  

China's Wood Flooring Industry 

China's wood flooring market started to grow in the 1980s. With the rapid economic development in the country and the continuous improvement in living standards, especially over the past ten years, demand grew and the flooring producers developed new products for the housing sector. 

Currently the flooring sector has become a major industry with an annual production of more than 200 million square metres and annual sales of about yuan 30 billion. The growth of the sector has averaged between 20-30% annually and is now an important sector of the national economy. According to estimate from Lü Bin, secretary-general of the Flooring Committee in the China Forest Products Industry Association, growth in the flooring industry will be around 20% annually for the medium term.  

At present, wood flooring produced in China is divided into 5 categories; solid floors, impregnated paper laminated floors, solid composite floors, bamboo floors and softwood floors. Solid floors and impregnated paper laminated floors have become the dominant products in the market.  

According to recent statistics, China has 4000 enterprises producing solid flooring (total annual output exceeds 70 million square metres) located mainly in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Guangdong, Yunnan, Beijing and some provinces in the northeast China. Some 90% of the materials used are from imported timbers and now some of the production is being exported.  Bamboo flooring is perhaps the latest product to gain a good foothold in international markets.

Impregnated paper laminated floors fall into 2 categories because of 2 different base materials, namely middle and high density fiberboard or particleboard. Now China has more than 500 large scale enterprises producing impregnated paper laminated floors (total annual output is 120 million square metres) mainly in Jiangsu, Shanghai, Guangdong, Fujiang, Hu'nan, Hubei, Sichuan, Beijing and Liaoning.

China's impregnated paper laminated flooring was entirely imported up to the middle of the 1990s. However impregnated paper laminated floors made in China have increased and, currently, 90% of the impregnated paper laminated floors in the market are of national brands, some are even exported now. Impregnated paper laminated floors have become more and more popular in the big cities and there is a growing market in the smaller and towns.

Solid composite floors are generally divided into 2 categories, three-layer solid composite floors and multi-layer solid composite floors. At present, China has some 100 enterprises producing solid composite floors (total annual output is about 22 million square metres) mainly in northeastern  China, Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Guangdong, Yun'nan, Zhejiang and Jiangsu.

Most of the enterprises producing solid composite floors have introduced advanced production equipment from German, Finland, Italy and Japan with a high level of automation. The output from these plants is exported. Three-layer solid composite floors go mainly to Europe and the U.S.; multi-layer floors go to Japan, South Korea and Northeast Asia. Solid composite floors having been finding a place in the domestic market over the past two years.

Bamboo floors generally include solid bamboo floors and bamboo and wood composite floors. Local analyst say that China has around 100 medium to large enterprises producing bamboo flooring (total annual output is 4 million square metres) mainly in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hu'nan, Guizhou, Fujian, Anhui and Liaoning. The bamboo products from Taiwan Province of China enjoy an increasing market acceptance in recent years.

There are a few enterprises producing softwood flooring but, so far, this is not a major industry in China. These production plants are scattered mainly in the northeast China and Shanxi as the raw materials are generally imported.

Owing to the healthy market demand for wood flooring the sector is facing some problems as more enterprises are jumping in without understanding the market and the production issues. The number of enterprises has increased significantly in recent years.

China's wood flooring industry has a bright future and in order to further improve its healthy development and meet the new demands, Lü Bin says that China's wood flooring industry should develop on four fronts, namely: product and production standardization, management standardization, product diversification and after sales service.

Guangxi a future timber production base

Since implementation of the Natural Forest Protection Program in 1998, domestic timber output fell and a large gap developed between timber supply and demand and this drove up imports. The authorities in China are well aware of the international pressure on producing countries to reduce log harvests and to limit log exports and are moving fast to develop its domestic resource base to meet the demand for timber. The rapid development of the Guangxi commercial plantations is a good example of how this goal could be achieved.

 Located in the sub-tropical humid monsoon climate region, Guangxi has a good climate for plantations and, at the same time people there have experience in selected seed cultivation and planting techniques. Guangxi province has always regarded forestry as a major provincial industry; it has taken the development of fast-growing and high-yielding plantations to new technological highs and has undertaken a favorable measure in terms of policies and funds to encourage plantations.

 The plantation area in Guangxi have increased at an annual rate of around 2 million mu (15 mu is equal to 1 hectare) and now the province has about 14 million mu of fast-growing and high-yielding plantation with an estimated stocking volume of 70 million cubic metres.

 According to local analysis, Guangxi will not only meet the demand for timber in local areas but will also be able to sell timber to other provinces.  This will certainly be the case if Guangxi achieves the goal of planting 10 million mu of fast-growing and high-yielding plantation during the "Tenth Five Plan" period (2001-2005).

 The aim of the forestry development strategy put forward recent in Guangxi is to have a forest cover of more than 46% and to achieve an production value of around yuan 50 billion by 2010.  The long range forecasts are for more than a 50% forest cover and output value of more than yuan 100 billion by 2020 and this will increase to more than 55% forest cover by 2050.

 Chengdu Building Huge Furniture Park

 An agreement for the construction of a furniture export development park worth US$110 million was signed at the end of last year in Wu Hou district of Chengdu City. China and the US will jointly fund the new industrial park. Both domestic and overseas furniture enterprises will be invited to take up space in the park. The project will occupy 2000 mu of land areas, beginning in 2004 and completing in 2006.

 Furniture Production Centres Emerge

 Four furniture production centres have emerged in China. They are: the South China furniture centre focussed on Guangzhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen, Zhoushan and Shunde;

the East China furniture area mainly in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang;

the Northeast China furniture areas in Shenyang and Dalian; and the North China furniture industrial areas centred on Beijing, Tianjin and Tangshan.

In 2002 the export value of furniture from the Yangtse River Delta region (centered around Shanghai) reached US$900 million, and accounted for 22.4% of the national total, a year on year increase of 47% and the fastest grow in the country. The export value of furniture in the Pearl River Delta region (centered around Guangzhou) came to US$2.74 billion, making up 51% of the national total, a year on year increase of 38%.

Lian Fa Group of Hong Kong invests

The investment by the Lian Fa Group of Hong Kong is reportedly the biggest wood processing  investment project in China at present. The new plant has a 7600 square metre working area and has automated production lines. The wood raw materials are mainly timbers from Russia. The production capacity is said to be 400,000 cubic metres of wood-based mainly for exports and the mills will process some 2.2 million cubic metres of logs.

 Seventh National Inventory 

According information from a meeting of 2004 China Forest Inventory Committee held in Hefei (capital of Anhui Province) in mid February work on the seventh forest resource inventory will start this year and will be completed by the end of 2008.

China investigates its forest resources province by province every 5 years and the results are important for developing and adjusting forest policies, programmes and planning, monitoring reductions and growth of forest resources. China has carried out 6 national forest inventories since the 1970s.

Guangzhou City Imported Timber Market

 Shanghai Furen Wholesale Market 

 Hebei Shijiangzhuang Wholesale Market  

Jiangsu Xuzhou Wholesale Market