Sweden accounts for one third of European shipments
The 10 biggest softwood lumber trade flows to the MENA region in 2022 (in 1,000 m³); green: increase, red: decrease © holzkurier.com
What stands out is the 6% increase in Sweden’s export share which reached 33% (2.6 million m³) in 2022. Romania, on the other hand, lost three percentage points and, at just under 0.5 million m³, only accounted for 6% of the total European exports to this large region. Finland was once again the European champion: In 2022, the Scandinavian country contributed 34% (2.7 million m³) to overall exports. 0.6 million m³ (8%) came from Austria and 0.5 million m³ (6%) from Germany. The remaining European countries shipped 1.1 million m³ (14%) to the MENA region.
“Redwood market” Egypt stands out among the importing countries. In 2022, the country covered 93% (2.6 million m³) of its demand for European softwood lumber through imports from Finland and Sweden. The United Arab Emirates, on the other hand, imported only 1%, or 0.3 million m³, of the wood it needs from Europe. Romania was the UAE’s top supplier with a share of 32% (0.1 million m³).
Israel and Tunisia bought nearly 80% of the softwood lumber from the two Scandinavian countries. Finland was Israel’s number one supplier with a share of 65% or 0.4 million m³ in imports, which totaled 0.6 million m³ in 2022. In the case of Tunisia, Sweden was the most important supplying country. It accounted for 42% or 96,000 m³ of overall imports (0.23 million m³).
Three other million cubic meter markets
Development of softwood lumber exports from 2019 to 2022: export volumes from the main supplying countries to the MENA region in 1,000 m³ | Africa (shades of red): Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya; Middle East (shades of green): Saudi Arabia, UAE, Israel, grey: other importing countries © holzkurier.com
Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Algeria received around 60% of their European softwood lumber from Finland and Sweden. Each of the two shipped around 1 million m³ to the three countries. As a supplier, Romania was negligible on the Moroccan and Algerian markets. Instead, other European countries were doing exceptionally well there.
Libya imported around 0.2 million m³. Most of the softwood lumber did not come from the main supplying countries. The share is 54,000 m³ or 34% of the overall volume. Sweden’s share was the same.
Development of softwood lumber imports from 2019 to 2022: import volumes of the most important markets in the MENA region in 1,000 m³ | dark green: Finland, dark grey: Sweden, red: Austria, pink: Slovenia, light green: Germany, yellow: Romania, turquoise: Latvia, light grey: other supplying countries © holzkurier.com
Finland exported almost no softwood lumber to Libya, and Romania’s share was exactly zero. The remaining countries of the MENA region imported a total of around 0.8 million m³ last year, with Finland, Sweden, Austria, Germany and Romania each accounting for about 10 to 20%. At 26% (0.2 million m³), the import share of other European countries was remarkably high there as well.
| European shipments of softwood lumber to the Middle East and North Africa (in 1,000 m³) | ||||||||||||
| Horizontal: Importing country| Vertical: Exporting country | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country | Egypt | Saudi Arabia | Morocco | Algeria | Israel | UAE | Tunisia | Libya | Other countries | Total 2022 | Total 2021 | Diff. in % |
| Finland | 1,239 | 493 | 187 | 265 | 388 | 0.3 | 81 | 0 | 78 | 2,733 | 2,578 | 6 % |
| Sweden | 1,327 | 371 | 380 | 255 | 66 | 2 | 96 | 54 | 90 | 2,640 | 1,969 | 34 % |
| Austria | 4 | 146 | 48 | 121 | 22 | 61 | 13 | 43 | 161 | 620 | 586 | 6 % |
| Slovenia | 0 | 75 | 30 | 154 | 2 | 34 | 17 | 50 | 127 | 488 | 365 | 34 % |
| Germany | 5 | 136 | 69 | 47 | 27 | 88 | 7 | 8 | 92 | 479 | 442 | 8 % |
| Romania | 30 | 124 | 5 | 0 | 21 | 110 | 1 | 0 | 165 | 456 | 648 | -30 % |
| Latvia | 106 | 5 | 9 | 0.3 | 30 | 6 | 8 | 0 | 5 | 170 | 181 | -6 % |
| Belgium | 29 | 0 | 40 | 14 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 84 | 103 | -19 % |
| Italy | 3 | 15 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 26 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 31 | 83 | 100 | -17 % |
| Lithuania | 0.5 | 43 | 3 | 0.4 | 20 | 3 | 1 | 0.2 | 8 | 79 | 104 | -24 % |
| Other EU countries | 15 | 34 | 94 | 5 | 19 | 18 | 3 | 3 | 27 | 218 | 262 | -17 % |
| Total | 2,761 | 1,443 | 864 | 862 | 599 | 348 | 227 | 159 | 787 | 8,049 | 7,337 | 10 % |
