Briefing : In August 2026, China’s total timber imports reached 4.392 million cubic meters, a 9% increase from the previous year. Logs were the primary driver of overall growth, with the value of imports rising significantly by 19.8% year-over-year. Supply sources became even more concentrated, with New Zealand firmly holding the top spot and Russia following closely behind, as the market saw both volume and prices rise.
  
In August 2026, China’s timber import market saw both volume and prices rise, with total imports growing steadily. Driven by rising prices, the increase in import value significantly outpaced the increase in import volume. Log imports performed particularly well, and the composition of import sources also shifted slightly.

Rising Volume and Prices: Logs Drive Overall Import Growth

Specifically, in August, China’s total timber imports reached 4.392 million cubic meters, up 9% year-over-year but down 6.6% month-over-month; the import value was $981.49 million, up 19.8% year-over-year.

Of this total, log imports amounted to 2.445 million cubic meters, down 7.7% month-over-month but up 15.7% year-over-year, serving as the primary driver of overall timber import growth; the import value for logs was $406.77 million, up 35.2% year-over-year, with the average price rising 16.8% year-over-year.
  
During the same period, imports of sawn timber continued to grow modestly, with the import volume reaching 1.947 million cubic meters—a 5.2% decrease from the previous month but a 1.7% increase year-over-year. The import value totaled $574.72 million, up 10.9% year-over-year, while the average price rose 9.1% year-over-year.

In terms of coniferous lumber, total imports in August 2026 amounted to 3.128 million cubic meters, a year-over-year increase of 10.4%, accounting for 71.2% of total lumber imports; the import value was $525.1 million, up 21.4% year-over-year, with the average price rising 9.9% year-over-year. Of this total, coniferous logs amounted to 1.974 million cubic meters, up 14.4% year-over-year, while coniferous sawn timber totaled 1.155 million cubic meters, up 4.2% year-over-year.

 
Supply Sources: New Zealand Leads the Way; Concentration Among the Top Ten Increases

In terms of supplier countries, the top ten countries exporting timber to China in August 2026 accounted for a combined total of 3,689,800 cubic meters, an 11.3% year-over-year increase. This represented approximately 84% of China’s total timber imports, up from 82.3% during the same period in 2025. The combined value of imports from the top ten countries totaled $748,735,000, accounting for 76.3% of the total value. This indicates that the concentration of China’s timber import sources has further increased.

New Zealand and Russia remain China’s top two sources of timber imports. In August 2026, timber imports from New Zealand totaled 1.638 million cubic meters, firmly holding the top spot, with a year-over-year increase of 22.1 percent; the import value also rose by 35.7 percent during the same period; Imports of lumber from Russia totaled 966,000 cubic meters, ranking second. While the volume of imports declined slightly by 1.8%, the import value increased by 13.1% year-over-year due to price factors.



There was a marked divergence in lumber imports to China from certain countries. Imports from the United States and Papua New Guinea experienced explosive growth, with imports from the United States surging 84.5% year-over-year and those from Papua New Guinea rising 65.6% year-over-year. Timber exports to China from countries such as Belarus and Japan also maintained double-digit growth rates. In contrast, imports from Canada and Thailand contracted, with timber imports from Canada falling 19.1% year-over-year and those from Thailand declining 7.9% year-over-year.

 
Market analysis indicates that in August, China’s timber imports were primarily characterized by “an increase in total volume, a rapid rise in value, and an upward trend in average prices.” The scale of imports, supported by market demand, continued to expand; however, against the backdrop of sharp price increases for logs and sawn timber, overall import costs rose.

Overall, in the first eight months of 2026, China’s cumulative timber imports reached 35.63 million cubic meters, a 5% year-over-year decrease; the cumulative import value was approximately $7.78 billion, up 2.3% year-over-year. Specifically, cumulative log imports totaled 20.97 million cubic meters, down 2% year-over-year, with the average price rising 6.5% year-over-year; cumulative sawn timber imports totaled approximately 14.659 million cubic meters, down 9% year-over-year, with the average price rising 10.7% year-over-year.