In the first half of 2023, China's log imports from Russia fell by 32% to 960,000 cubic meters. There are two main reasons for the decline. First of all, in the past two years, the timber trade between China and Russia has been greatly affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic and the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Secondly, Russia raised the log export tax rate, which put a lot of pressure on Chinese companies, resulting in a sharp drop in Russian log imports.
In addition, China's log imports from Germany and Papua New Guinea in the first half of this year fell by 27% and 7%, respectively, compared with the same period in 2022.
The decline in the supply of logs from the three major suppliers of Germany and Papua New Guinea directly led to a decrease in the total national imports in the first half of 2023, but the imports of logs from Poland soared by more than 300% to 670,000 cubic meters in the first half of the year.