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Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, May 4th. "Reference News" recently published an article "Serious Global Timber Shortage" by Japan's Asahi Shimbun. The summary of the article is as follows:

The shortage of wood is becoming more and more serious around the world. Due to the superposition of various factors such as strong housing demand in the United States and shortage of containers, the price of wood has generally risen, so that the industry refers to this phenomenon as the "timber crisis." Some people think that this situation will continue for a long time.

Affected by the new crown epidemic, the price of timber futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in the United States plummeted last spring. However, timber futures prices began to rise sharply around June last year, and are currently more than three times the price last spring. If the supply continues to be insufficient, consumers are likely to face the problems of delays in housing construction and rising prices of raw materials.

In recent years, the wood industry in North America has been sluggish, pests and diseases have appeared in Canada, and wood supply capacity has declined. Coupled with the sudden outbreak of the epidemic, many timber industry players believe that global housing demand will further decline, thus reducing the number of orders and the number of employees.

But unexpectedly, the number of housing starts in the United States in March this year hit the highest level since 2006. It is reported that the reason is that in the face of the new crown epidemic, the government has introduced low interest rate policies and fiscal stimulus measures, and people's demand for self-built houses is high.

In addition, on a global scale, there is a shortage of freight containers and it is difficult to make reservations for shipping vessels. These factors have also pushed up the price of wood.