Home / Lights & Construction

According to the timber news website, the data released by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry of Indonesia recently showed that as of September this year, the international trade export of Indonesian wood products reached US $11.07 billion, an increase of 13.1% over the same period last year; In just nine months, it reached 81.6% of the total export value in 2021 (US $13.57 billion).

Indonesia mainly exports wood and wood products to Asian markets, and China is one of its largest markets. However, under the circumstance that China strictly implements the control measures for the COVID-19 and the market demand continues to be sluggish, Indonesia's export of wood and wood products to China has slowed down. As of September this year, the value of timber and wood products exported by Indonesia to China was only US $2.36 billion, down 21.1% year on year. As China's domestic market demand continued to decline in the second half of the year, Indonesia adjusted its export structure of wood and wood products to Asia and increased its exports to Japan and South Korea. According to the data, as of September this year, Indonesia's timber international trade exports to Japan increased by 15% year on year, and the export volume reached 1.14 billion US dollars; Exports to South Korea increased by 22%, with an export value of 585 million US dollars. The growth of exports to the Indian market was even stronger. In the first nine months of this year, exports to India reached 361 million US dollars, up 35% year on year.

European and American markets are mixed. Under the influence of inflation and rising interest rates, the demand of the United States market has declined, and Indonesia's exports of wood and wood products to the United States are slowing. Although Indonesia's exports to the United States increased throughout the year, the situation reversed in September. From January to September this year, the export value of wood products to the United States was only 1.77 billion US dollars, down 19% from the same period last year (2.19 billion US dollars); Indonesia's furniture exports to the United States fell even more sharply. Compared with the US $1.41 billion in the same period last year, the export volume this year fell by about 40% to US $849 million. However, Indonesia's exports of wood and wood products to the European Union and the UK market increased significantly. In the first nine months of this year, Indonesia's international trade exports to the EU and the UK increased by 54% year-on-year to US $1.3 billion, significantly higher than its exports to Asian markets.

Indonesian officials from the Ministry of Finance said that local forestry companies need to make efforts to diversify their international trade export markets and transfer their exports to the EU, the UK, Japan and India as far as possible to reduce the losses caused by the decline in demand in China and the United States. Although the import scale of Indonesian wood and wood products from EU countries is still lower than that of the two major markets in China and the United States, it can be expected that the EU or India will become Indonesia's third largest export market. On the whole, compared with last year, the export of Indonesian wood products accelerated significantly in the first nine months. However, as the demand of China and the United States, the main international trade export markets, continues to be sluggish, it is not easy for Indonesia to maintain sustained export growth.