Latest official statistics on the world’s forest resource have been published in the new year book of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.
The publication covers production and trade in all wood-based products during 1996-2000. It shows that the US was the largest annual importer of sawnwood at 47 million m3, followed by Japan (9.95 million m3), Italy (8.3 million m3), the UK (7.96 million m3) and Germany (5.8 million m3).
The US also topped the wood-based panels import league at 14.31 millon m3, followed by China (7.49 million m3), Japan (6.2 million m3), Germany (3.4 million m3) and the UK (3.1 million m3).
The UK emerges as the fourth largest exporter of wood fuel – 234,000 million m3 – after the Russian Federation, Hungary and France.
