GTI Report: Timber sector shows partial recovery, resilience across the tropics

Timber sector stakeholders at a forum organized by Ghana’s Forestry Commission and the GTI Platform in July to promote sustainable forest management. © Michael Ofosu

The timber sector in Asia, Africa, and Latin America showed some improvement in July, with gains recorded in three countries and resilience evident in several others, according to the latest Global Timber Index (GTI) Report. The ITTO-supported GTI tracks the performance of the timber sector in ten pilot countries across three continents.

Among the pilot countries, Indonesia (52.7%), Brazil (52.2%), and Gabon (51.8%) registered GTI readings above the 50% threshold, indicating a slight overall expansion in their timber sectors compared to the previous month. The other seven countries were in contraction territory: the Republic of the Congo (49.3%) posted readings close to the threshold, indicating slight contraction; Ghana (47.8%), Ecuador (47.7%), Thailand (47.5%), and China (43.0%) showed moderate contraction; and Mexico (38.7%) and Malaysia (28.8%) recorded a significant downturn.

Sub-indices revealed that Brazil’s harvesting volume increased month-on-month, while Indonesia’s harvesting activities remained stable over the past three months. Overall performance on the production side was positive: production volume rose in Indonesia, Thailand, Gabon, and Brazil this month, and Ecuador’s production volume, after three consecutive months of growth, held steady over the past two months. On the demand side, new orders for both Indonesia and Brazil grew for the third consecutive month, while the orders for Gabon and the Republic of the Congo stabilized after earlier declines.

The GTI-Producers Index, a specialized index for timber production, stood at 50.1%, suggesting little change in conditions in the subsector. However, the GTI-Woodbased Panel Index, a specialized index for wood-based panels, was at 37.6%, indicating weakness in that area.

GTI pilot countries continued to advance work on plantation development and securing timber raw material supplies. For example, Ecuador has about 172 000 hectares of commercial plantations and recently allocated USD 1.09 million in incentives for the development of a further 2 245 hectares. Brazil is actively expanding its planted forest area and has about 40 million hectares of degraded land suitable for restoration, providing room to increase supplies of renewable timber.

At the same time, some countries have strengthened government–enterprise collaboration to accelerate expansion into international markets. For example, the Malaysian government has approved the use of a digital trade platform to support the furniture industry; the Indonesian government aims to gain new market access for furniture products through various international trade agreements; and in response to US tariff barriers, Brazil’s furniture industry has strengthened its market diversification strategy, achieving growth in furniture exports to several Latin American markets.

In its series of case studies on good practice for legal and sustainable timber trade, the GTI Report for July showcases the Brazilian timber industry’s efforts to strengthen sustainable supply chains, and how a Ghanaian timber company is establishing plantations on degraded forest land, and using wood waste to generate energy.

The monthly GTI Report, GTI-Producers Report and GTI-WBP Report are freely available at www.itto.int/gti.