Following a rather slow outflow, the separate softwood plywood quota for Great Britain/Northern Ireland - initially set at 167,352m³ for this year - is now exhausted. According to the tracking system of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) the last time duty-free imports were possible was on 18 May. The residual volume of 1,633m³ was called up on that day. Due to an accounting error, the British quota had already been reported as exhausted in mid-February. After a correction, HMRC had reopened the quota from 24 March with a residual volume of 58,832m³. Of this, just under 11,000m³ flowed out in the last week of March. By the end of April, approximately 36,000m³ had been called up.
Of the quota for softwood plywood imports into the EU-27, a volume of 94,383m³ was still available per 24 May. Thus, since the beginning of the year, a volume of 388,264m³ - 80% of the total 482,648m³ available - has been imported free of duty.
