Valuable broadleaved timber in China

As China's modernization drive the acceleration of the pace of increase in wood demand, the country is faced with the situation of shortage of wood supply especially in high-grade quality hardwood timber while constrained by its domestic wood supply capacity. It was estimated that China need to absorb large quantities of timbers especially valuable hardwood timbers from other countries to fill the gap in the market. Valuable hardwood timbers such as domestically supplied ash wood, imported tropical timber of merbau wood, imported cherry wood from North America and etc are widely used in high-value wooden furniture manufacture and for other valuable timber products such as solid wooden floor and veneer for interior decoration. Because of the scarcity of the valuable timber resources and their potential high value in the markets, valuable timber has drawn great attention in the market. Therefore, to get a clear overview of the situation of valuable hardwood timber in China is of great significance. However, there has been few studies with an emphasis on China's valuable hardwood timber and this research attempts to examine the status quo of the valuable hardwood timber in China's market to fill the information gap. This research is based on the theoretical framework of value chain analysis and structured in a systematic way to analyze the wood demand and supply, production of value-added products, consumption and trade flows of valuable hardwood timber in the markets. This thesis summarized existing data from various sources which has been transformed into useful information through the analysis. Firstly, this thesis identified the desired wood quality and property for valuable hardwood timber which demonstrated the importance of wood color and other aspects, and a list of highly demanded tree species suitable for high-value timber products manufacture was given as reference. Based on statistical data from reliable resources, the thesis analyzed the valuable hardwood timber supply in China which suggested that China would be more relied on imported wood raw materials while constrained by its domestic supply capacity. It was projected that by 2010, China would need a total 50 million cubic meters valuable hardwood timber, of which 42 million cubic meters would be imported from other countries. Through the analysis of China's wood products manufacture, the results showed a growing processing capacity of major value-added products in China. The next section of the thesis carried out an analysis of the consumption of China's valuable hardwood timber products including the projected 23 million cubic meters value-added wood products for exportation while 27 million cubic meters for domestic consumption by the year of 2010. Afterwards, this thesis presented the trade flow patterns in China's valuable timber market and provided up-to-date wood prices in major wholesale markets to get better understanding of the market situation. In addition, information gaps and limitations in this research were identified for possible further studies in the future.