Roundwood/Sawnwood

• Baltic sawmills’ cutting rate up due to higher supply of logs
• Baltic shippers push through marked increase in softwood lumber prices in East Asia
• Improvement in supply of logs to Baltic sawmills
• Demand for planed products stabilised by beginning of May
• Estonian log exports reduced by 10 % in 2012
• Ukrainian log exports to EU up 10% in 2012
• Log prices in Norway down slightly in March as well
• Marked rise registered in Finnish exports in February
• NRW reserves 195,000m³ for Klausner until October in an out-of-court settlement
• Supply of high-quality timber in 2012/2013 season roughly 24% below last year’s level

Wood products

• Gluelam-beam mark-ups in Italy fall short of targets

Wood-based panels

• Demand for Russian birch plywood holding at late March’s level
• Okoumé plywood manufacturers trying to raise prices since early April
• Demand for maritime pine plywood has been a little stronger since mid-April
• Demand for phenol still subdued in May
• Double-digit growth in sales of engineered wood products
• North American composite panels markets make first-quarter recovery
• Sharp growth in particleboard and MDF/HDF sales
• TFM sales bounce back slightly in North America

Surfaces

• Interprint becoming the fourth European decor printer to expand to Brazil
• Decor paper prices left largely untouched in the second quarter after all

Furniture

• 2013 expected to see slight growth in the kitchen industry
• Turnover in the furniture industry down by 3.5% to February
• VdDP to publish internal order statistics with immediate effect

Building products

• FEP: Parquet markets show further weakening
• Swiss parquet production has fallen again in 2012

Events

• German Pavilion at Intermob/WPM for first time
• Interzum Guangzhou attracts 8% more visitors again in 2013

Trade

• FSC Plenary Assembly to be held in mid-June in Berlin
• GD Holz: Substantial increase in demand in timber trade
• Wood Trade Day held parallel to Holzland meeting for first time
• „Forests for Future Generations“ Conference to be held in mid-June

Companies

• Homebase now markets Habitat in 200 stores
• Accsys increases turnover by 25% in 2011/2012
• Moelven modernises five production sites in 2013
• Moelven shows loss for first quarter of this year
• Rougier: 2012 results slide into the red
• Further recovery in West Fraser’s wood activities
• Rentech aims to start pellet production in 2014
• Böker beech plywood production to be continued
• Raute’s sales revenue and results up in first quarter too
• Teutoburger Sperrholz to be sold to Chinese investor
• Surteco expecting stable sales at best in 2013
• Mohawk completes take-over of Spano Group
• Dieffenbacher starts marketing its Colorizer technology again
• Inwido now holds all shares in Frovin Vinduer
• PAL/Imal wants to become Globus’ sole owner in the medium term
• Steelcase spends US$35m on restructuring

• News in Brief
• Trade