“China will continue to present a huge opportunity and huge issues,” said John White, chief executive of the Timber Trade Federation (TTF), at a seminar in London earlier this week.
Around 85 TTF members and consultants met to discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by trade with China at the seminar which the federation planned “long before” publication of the recent Greenpeace Partners in Crime report. In the report a number of UK importers and merchants were implicated in trading in Chinese plywood, allegedly sourced from illegal logging operations in Indonesia.
Also speaking at the seminar, Peter Latham, chairman of Forests Forever, said that China is the largest importer of logs in the world and the largest plywood producer – 21 million m3 in 2003. It currently accounts for around 20% of the UK tropical hardwood market, up 8% from last year and, as a consequence, presents “a problem that urgently needs to be addressed”.
Topics covered during the seminar included analysis of market conditions in China, environmental issues raised by NGOs, opportunities for the UK trade to source legal and sustainable timber from the country, and technical issues – particularly surrounding the role of CE marking.
