Decreasing laminated timber imports

Article by Martina Nöstler (translated by Eva Guzely) | 28.03.2025 - 10:31

In the first two months of 2025, Japan reduced its glulam and CLT imports. Bigger volumes were purchased from Austria, Estonia and Romania, whereas decreases were recorded in shipments from Finland, Russia and China.

In January and February, Japan imported 83,000 m³ of glue- and cross-laminated timber, as Statistics of Japan reports. Year on year, this corresponds to a 9% decrease. As a look in the Datacube shows, this was also the smallest import volume since the first two months of 2010 (75,000 m³) and around half of the record volume in the same period of 2022 (around 192,000 m³).

Imports from Finland decreased by 44% to 24,300 m³. Smaller volumes of laminated timber were also purchased from Russia (6,000 m³; -20%) and China (3,200 m³; -50%). Increases in imports from supplying countries such as Austria (14,300 m³; +47%), Estonia (10,000 m³; +81%) or Romania (9,100 m³; +33%) were not enough to offset decreases.