Between January and September 2018, the EU28 countries, Canada, Russia, and Chile exported more than 9 million m³ of softwood lumber and planed goods to the MENA region. This makes for an export increase of 5.7% compared to the same period of the previous year. What stands out is that additional volumes first and foremost went to Algeria: Due to the import licensing chaos, 2017 imports were relatively weak with a total of 685,000 m³. In 2018, the deliveries returned to the level of 2015 with 1.4 million m³. The largest Algeria-bound export countries of 2018 were Sweden (400,000 m³; +160%), Finland (391,000 m³; +159%), and Austria (265,000 m³; +60%).
Development of softwood lumber imports on the most important MENA markets 1Q through 3Q 2015-2018 (1,000 m³) © Timber-Online
Upswing for Egypt
With 2.8 million m³, exports to Egypt compared to the same period in 2017 did show an increase of 5% – however, compared to the first three quarters of 2015 and 2016, the delivery volumes still remained 27% and 20% respectively below the "normal level". Despite a decline of 1 million m³ in the course of four years, Egypt is still the most important destination – almost a third of MENA exports were delivered to the land of the Nile. From January to September 2018, 98% of the lumber came from Finland (970,000 m³), Russia (928,000 m³), Sweden (670,000 m³) as well as Latvia (166,000 m³).
Volumes halved
Deliveries to Saudi Arabia have been continuously declining during the past four years and amounted to 750,000 m³ between January and September of 2018. With this, the volumes dropped 24% compared to the same period of the previous year and 52% compared to the first three quarters of 2015. Main suppliers were Sweden (222,000 m³) and Finland (156,000 m³).
Lumber exports going to Morocco gained 13% totaling 851,000 m³. Here, Sweden (288,000 m³), Finland (166,000 m³) and Spain (141,000 m³) acted as main suppliers.
Austria placed fourth
MENA trade – The ten largest streams of softwood lumber 1Q through 3Q 2018 © Timber-Online
The largest MENA exporters by far were Finland (2.1 million m³; +3.9%), Russia (1.9 million m³; +9.4%) and Sweden (1.8 million m³; +2.5%). In total, the three countries were responsible for over 60% of deliveries to the MENA region. Finland primarily delivered to Egypt (970,000 m³), Algeria (391,000 m³) and Israel (315,000 m³).
Russia's main customers in the MENA region were Egypt (928,000 m³), Iran (574,000 m³) and Iraq (149,000 m³). Sweden mainly delivered to Egypt (670,000 m³), Algeria (400,000 m³) and Morocco (288,000 m³) from January to September.
The proportionally speaking biggest volume increase of all exporters compared to the same period of the previous year was achieved by Austria with a plus of 27% to 695,000 m³. The by far most important destination for Austrian lumber in the MENA region during the first three quarters of 2018 was Algeria with 265,000 m³.
Development of softwood lumber exports of the most important MENA exporters 1Q through 3Q 2015-2018 (1,000 m³) © Timber-Online
| Softwood deliveries by the biggest exporting countries to the biggest customers of the MENA region between January and September 2018 (1,000 m³) |
||||||||||
| Exporter |
Importer |
Sum |
||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Egypt |
Algeria |
Saudi Arabia |
Morocco |
UAE | Israel | Iran | Tunisia |
Other countries |
||
| Finland |
970 | 391 | 156 | 166 | – | 315 | 2 | 68 | 41 | 2,108 |
| Russia |
928 | – | 13 | 1 | 3 | 64 | 574 | 13 | 290 | 1,886 |
| Sweden |
670 | 400 | 222 | 288 | 1 | 61 | – | 71 | 103 | 1,816 |
| Austria |
4 | 265 | 60 | 63 | 58 | 13 | – | 33 | 199 | 695 |
| Romania |
21 | – | 81 | 3 | 150 | 19 | – | – | 211 | 486 |
| Germany |
7 | 40 | 97 | 36 | 108 | 29 | – | 10 | 155 | 481 |
| Slovenia |
– | 155 | 22 | 24 | 11 | – | – | 16 | 70 | 299 |
| Latvia |
166 | – | 18 | – | 38 | 38 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 268 |
| Spain |
– | 123 | – | 141 | – | – | – | – | – | 264 |
| France |
– | 11 | – | 15 | – | 1 | – | 160 | – | 187 |
| Chile |
– | – | – | – | 94 | – | – | – | 47 | 141 |
| Italiy |
9 | – | 3 | 7 | 48 | 2 | – | 1 | 47 | 117 |
| Other countries |
19 | 28 | 79 | 107 | 35 | 16 | – | 4 | 63 | 351 |
| Total | 2,794 | 1,414 | 750 | 851 | 546 | 558 | 577 | 379 | 1,231 | 9,099 |
Method
Timber-Online utilized EU28 data from the European statistics authority Eurostat for its analysis. Since the MENA region also receives goods from non-EU countries, we additionally consider the foreign trade volumes from Russia, Canada and Chile. For this we inquired national statistics which means that the ten biggest wood exporters of the world are represented in this evaluation.
The inquiry included softwood lumber including planed goods. The HS codes for this product group effective January 2017 are: 440711, 440712, 440719.
Austria does not have its own shipping port and therefore ships deliveries to the MENA region via Slovenia and Croatia. The applied model also considers volumes that Austria exported to those two countries. These exports were deducted from the export figures for Slovenia and Croatia and added to the Austrian statistics. The distribution over the countries of North Africa and the MENA region was carried out by means of percentage.
Timber-Online definition of the MENA region: Egypt, Algeria, Syrian Arab Republic, Ethiopia, Bahrain, Iraq, Islamic Republic of Iran, Israel, Yemen, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunesia, United Arab Emirates.
