The Swedish Forest Industries Federation (Skogs Industrierna) reported total sawn and planed UK-bound exports of 969,700m3 in January-May 2013.
Planed timber accounted for the lion’s share of the overall volumes. The 561,300m3 of planed goods exported to the UK were down only 0.4% on a year ago, while sawn pine shipments fell by 13.6% to 265,300m3 and sawn spruce dipped by 22.6% to 142,400m3.
The next biggest European export market for Sweden was Germany at 443,600m3, followed by Norway (397,000m3).
The only European countries to see more Swedish volumes during the period compared to a year ago were Poland and Portugal.
China and Japan were a different story: Chinese sawn and planed imports from Sweden grew by 215% to 143,800m3, while Japan’s volumes grew 23.8% to 415,800m3.
Yemen and the US were the other success stories, with Swedish exports increasing to the two nations by 122% (53,900m3) and 268% (86,300m3) respectively.
