{"id":19445,"date":"2024-07-29T17:46:34","date_gmt":"2024-07-29T07:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/?p=19445"},"modified":"2024-10-21T20:17:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T10:17:33","slug":"eudr-trade-war-wont-curb-addiction-to-chinese-timber-furniture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/eudr-trade-war-wont-curb-addiction-to-chinese-timber-furniture\/","title":{"rendered":"EUDR & Trade War Won’t Curb Addiction to Chinese Timber Furniture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

China now accounts for more than 40% of all furniture produced, with huge volumes of timber, plywood, and non-structural boards, including MDF, OSB, and particleboard, used to produce more than 386 million pieces last year alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is according to new data published by China Customs, which reports that more than 30% of all furniture produced in China ends up in the United States – with vast overflows entering American supply chains via Vietnam and Malaysia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And despite concerns that the EUDR <\/a>and Donald Trump’s Tariff Plan<\/a> could shut out furniture imports to the world’s two largest consumer markets, Chinese volumes of furniture increased by 24% year-on-year to 217 million over the first six months of 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mc3inAiH8weavARYdvpE
Despite concerns over EUDR and a potential trade war, Chinese exports of wooden furniture are now surging across the world according to new data provided by China Customs. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“The US imported 65.4 million pieces, a 19.6% increase over the same time last year,” according to Russian-based Lesprom<\/a>, with the UK – China’s second largest individual market for furniture, “also increasing by 25.5% to 14.5 million individual pieces.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this month<\/a>, Wood Central revealed that China rejected key parts of the European Union’s EUDR \u2013 with the world’s largest forest economy refusing to share geolocational data with the EU over “security concerns.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And less than six months before the December 30 deadline, a group of the world’s top furniture producers (including China, Vietnam, and Indonesia) is already looking beyond Europe to supply merchandise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chinas
The United States dwarfs all other export markets for Chinese-produced wooden furniture, with the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands (which is used as a trading post into the EU) amongst the top markets for China. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, despite concerns over supply, “trade in Chinese timber furniture is booming in France and Germany,” Lesprom said, with the volume of Chinese imports up 30.1% to 11.4 million in France and up 32.5% rise in the number of pieces to 10.7 million, in Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond Europe, 40-foot containers of furniture are also arriving in Australian ports in enormous numbers\u2014China’s fifth largest export market and largest on a per capita basis \u2014with more than 10.7 million items of furniture entering the Australian supply chain this year\u2014up 22.5% for the first six months over 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is Russian timber being used to produce Chinese furniture?<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

In April,<\/a> Wood Central revealed that 70% of all lumber imported into China came from Russia and Belarus\u2014with Russia supplying 2.7 million cubic metres of lumber and Belarus 269,000 cubic metres for the first quarter of 2024 alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"China
China is a “launching point” for Russia to bypass western sanctions and infiltrate global supply chains, including the EU, which has had strict sanctions on all Russian and Belarussian forest products since mid 2022. (Photo Credit: \nFILE #: 186902872 via Adobe Stock Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since China began restricting commercial logging in its forests, it has increasingly turned to Russia, with the New York Times reporting that China now imports <\/a>vast amounts of wood, especially plywood, to satisfy the appetite of its construction companies and furniture manufacturers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“China’s construction boom in the early 2000s and growth in furniture and flooring manufacturing created a massive demand for veneer and plywood,” according to Rudolf van Rensburg, the co-author of “China\u2014Forest, Log & Lumber Outlook,” a 197-page report produced by Russ Taylor Global and Margules Groome Consulting.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it stands, plywood imports from Russia have surged 344% for the first four months of 2024, with China the final (or intermediary) destination for more than 90% of all plywood leaving Russian factories.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just how much of that plywood is now entering the global furniture supply chain remains unknown – and yet another example of China’s Manufacturing Black Box.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China now accounts for more than 40% of all furniture produced, with huge volumes of timber, plywood, and non-structural boards, including MDF, OSB, and particleboard, used to produce more than 386 million pieces last year alone. That is according to new data published by China Customs, which reports that more than 30% of all furniture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[51,52,50,37,33,53,32,46,42,45,44,31,40],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":{"0":"post-19445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-americas","8":"category-asia","9":"category-australia","10":"category-building-and-construction","11":"category-editors-picks","12":"category-europe","13":"category-global-news","14":"category-industry","15":"category-interior-wood-products","16":"category-sustainability","17":"category-sustainable-forest-management","18":"category-top-stories","19":"category-wood-products"},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":2,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jason","display_name":"Jason Ross","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/J-Ross-headshot.jpeg","url2x":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/J-Ross-headshot.jpeg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19445"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19455,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19445\/revisions\/19455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19445"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=19445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}