Last year, China imported 26.1 million m³ of softwood logs. This marks the third consecutive year of dwindling imports. Compared to 2023, imports decreased by 7%. Compared to the record year of 2021 with 49.7 million m³, trade was down by nearly 50%.
In 2024, New Zealand (17.8 million m³; -1%) was once again the number one supplying country, followed by Japan (1.64 million m³; +17%), the US (1.27 million m³; +2%) and Canada (1.15 million m³; +24%).
Last year, China again received substantially smaller volumes of softwood logs from Germany and the entire EU. In 2021, the EU shipped 16.3 million m³ to China and thus accounted for nearly one third of the country’s total imports. Lately, only 3.23 million m³ were imported and that percentage fell to only 12% as a result. When looking even further back in the Datacube, you can see that Europe has had smaller shares in total Chinese imports before, for example, only 2.2% in 2017.
According to China Customs Statistics, Germany delivered 11.7 million m³ of softwood logs to China in the record year of 2021, i.e. nearly one quarter of total imports. In 2024, deliveries amounted to slightly more than 1 million m³, Germany had a share of 4%. Compared to 2023, imports from Germany decreased by 69%.
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