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According to Japan's "Asahi Shimbun" report on April 28, the global shortage of wood is becoming more and more serious. 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.

According to reports, in the spring of last year when the new crown epidemic began to spread, the timber futures price on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the world's largest futures market, once fell below 300 US dollars per thousand board feet (approximately 2.4 cubic meters per thousand board feet). However, timber futures prices have started to rise sharply around June 2020, and are now more than twice as high as they were in the spring of 2020, exceeding USD 1,000 per thousand board feet. 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.

According to the report, when talking about the reasons for the wood shortage, industry insiders said: "Supply capacity is declining, but the demand for wood in the United States and China has unexpectedly increased sharply."

The report pointed out that in recent years, the timber industry in North America has been in a downturn, disease and pests have appeared in Canada, and timber supply capacity has declined. Coupled with the sudden outbreak of the new crown epidemic in the spring of 2020, 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 US economy recovered quickly. The number of housing starts in March this year was the highest 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, China's economy is recovering rapidly. The demand for wood in the United States and China is growing, but the supply cannot keep up, and the price of wood has risen as a result. Globally, there is a shortage of freight containers and it is difficult to make appointments for shipping vessels. These factors have also pushed up the price of timber.