Belarusian mills sold 24.9 per cent more lumber into China in June than a year earlier, shipping 83,300 cubic metres worth US$16.8 million as the value of the trade climbed 32.9 per cent and average prices reached $201.8 per cubic metre. That is according to customs trade data covering Belarus’s lumber exports, putting June prices 6.4 per cent higher than a year earlier, in a market where Russian rivals are selling nearly a third less.

It comes as Russian sawn timber exports to China fell 30 per cent year-on-year across the first four months of 2026 to 2.6 million cubic metres, with revenue down 26 per cent to $603.7 million, according to Russian export figures reported by Vedomosti. China bought 11.2 million cubic metres of Russian sawn timber in 2025, half of everything Russia exported, before a property crisis cut the country’s real estate sales 9.5 per cent to their lowest level since 2009.

“China is the top importer,” Forestry Minister Aleksandr Kulik said in May, confirming during a visit to the Pinsk forestry enterprise that Chinese buyers take between 400,000 and 500,000 cubic metres of the 1 million cubic metres of lumber Belarus exports each year. Kulik’s enterprises have chosen Chinese producers for ten new sawmill lines in 2026, with the first two already acquired for testing at Pinsk and the minister crediting equipment that uses less energy and less raw material.

Neither trade moves in a straight line, with the same monthly series counting Belarusian shipments down 28 per cent in May before June’s rebound.