At 4.16bn €, the foreign trade surplus of the Austrian forest and wood industry in 2016 was well above the long-term average and roughly 8% than last year. According to information from the cooperation platform Forst-Holz-Papier (FHP), the only time the surplus was slightly higher was in 2007 at 4.18bn €.
According to FHP, last year’s imports worth 5.73bn € coincided with exports with a value of 9.89bn € after figures of 5.61bn € and 9.46bn € respectively in 2015. The export surplus of the whole wood sector was raised by 310m € above the 2016 level whereby the value of the exports increased by 430m € (+4.5%) and imports by 120m € (+2.1%).
Roughly 4.97bn € of the value of the woodworking industry’s exports in 2016 was accounted for by paper products (paper, board, viscose etc.), 3.08bn € by wood and wood products (including timber), 0.94bn € by chipboard and fibreboard, 0.58bn by furniture, and 0.32bn € by pulp and mechanical pulp. The wood industry thus recorded an export share of around 70%, the pulp and paper industry exported up to 85% of its output.