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Inventory levels at most European lumber mills are running low at the start of 2021. By the middle of the year, there was a sudden surge in demand for wood and wood products across Europe, mainly in France. By the end of the year, the market was still moving at an unimaginable speed. Manufacturers are full of orders, ports are congested, and delivery times are extended, but this still cannot prevent wood from Europe from selling well around the world.

By the beginning of this year, the shipping congestion since last year continued, and the stagnation of logistics and transportation time has become the new normal for European timber sales. Temporarily affected by trends in the US lumber market, demand for lumber and wood products in the European market remained strong at the beginning of the year. Data show that global timber trade rose by 20% over the period.

Subsequently, the situation in Russia and Ukraine was completely deadlocked, which triggered a new round of panic buying in the European timber market in the first half of this year. The tight supply caused both timber dealers and consumers to start stockpiling. This has also led to unprecedented issues of cost, supply and price facing the European timber industry.

With energy and other costs rising rapidly, more and more data point to a global economic slowdown or downturn. The rekindled European timber market has cooled rapidly and is facing a completely different situation than last year - households' buying desire has plummeted under inflationary pressures, orders are no longer piling up, and timber suppliers are facing losses due to lower profits.

Fortunately, after the end of the first half of the year, many timber merchants announced record-breaking sales results, and the sales prices of many timber-related businesses have risen, which offset the negative impact of rising costs. However, due to the negative effects of the global economic turmoil on the industry, the uncertainty of the European timber market has greatly increased this autumn, and it will face a new normal in terms of supply, price, cost, labor, inflation and other aspects.

In the context of economic globalization, the European timber market is only a microcosm of the global timber trade, and the new normal it faces will also be what the global timber market needs to face. At present, the global timber market is basically in a stage of falling prices and declining demand. Facing the increasingly complex global timber trade, the impact on the market supply remains to be seen.