Japan’s softwood sawn timber imports fell by 6% from nearly 3.3 million m³ in the first seven months of 2019 to 3.1 million m³ in the same period of this year. Seasonal developments aside, a massive decrease set in in mid-February which was, however, followed by a recovery from mid-March on, and in June, imports were again close to last year’s level. There is thus no clear link to COVID-19. In Japan, the first cases were recorded already in January. However, the actual outbreak is said to have started in mid-March.
Austrian exports to Japan saw a marked year-on-year decrease of 22.9% with a total of 150,409 m³. Shipments from many other supplying countries, such as Chile (-28.8%), the Czech Republic (-17.7%), Canada (-14.4%), Romania (-11%) and the US (-8.9%), fell, too.
Sweden, on the other hand, recorded a considerable increase of 19.4% to 526,635 m³. Russia also saw its shipments rise by 2.2% to a comparable volume (557,908 m³).
As always, you can find detailed figures in our Datacube.
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