Influenced by the international and domestic economy condition, the basic situation of China wood market changed greatly. From the statistics of China wood imports and exports, its obvious that, China wood imports declined greatly, while imports prices rose.

In the first half of 2008, China wood materials imports (including log, lumber, veneer, plywood, fiberboard, particleboard) totaled about 20.3 million m3, down 3.44 million m3 over the previous years. The decline rate amounted to 14.5%. Log imports fell from about 20.0 million m3 in the first half of 2007 to 16.4 million m3 in the same period of this year with the decline rate of 18.2%. The fall of log imports from Russia was the main reason causing the decline of China log imports. In the first half of this year, log imports from Russia were 10.6 million m3, down 24.3% over the previous year.

China log imports dropped for the first time after rising for 10 years. This change was mainly resulted by the international and domestic economy situation. Besides, the rise of Russia wood imports tariff was another reason causing the drop of China wood imports. Currently, log imports tariff in Russia has amounted to 25%, while, according to the Russia new policy, log imports tariff will top 80%. This will greatly affect China wood market.