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Econ Home > Products > Southern Markets > Timber Sector
• Consumption of lumber in the US has grown at a lower rate than for housing starts, indicating some substitution away from lumber as a building material.
• Both non-wood and engineered wood products have substituted for lumber in many applications.
• Electronic media are substituting for paper.
• A majority of pulping capacity in the US is located in the South but this share has declined since the mid 1990’s.
• Pulping capacity in the South, an indicator of long term demand, has declined by 16 percent since 1998.
• Increasing world demand for paper products is leading to expansion in paper production capacity in countries other than the US.
• Shifts in capacity indicate that the US has lost some of its comparative advantage for producing paper for the world market. Possible causes relate to resource and labor costs and location of the US relative to the location of demand.
• Overall there is no indication of increased domestic demand for southern pulpwood in the future at least for production of paper products.
• Softwood lumber production capacity in the South has increased steadily in recent years (1997-2003).
• Softwood lumber production capacity in other regions of the US outside of the South has declined.
• There is no indication of declining demand for softwood sawtimber and some indication of increasing demand.
• Expansion in panel capacity indicates ongoing strong demand for low quality hardwood and softwood material for panels.
• Wood pulp imports are a relatively small portion of wood products production in the South (between 2 and 3 percent).
• While small, wood pulp imports to southern custom districts have increased since 1998.
• Up to 8 percent of domestic demand for pulpwood has been displaced by changes in trade, the majority (5 percent) is defined by loss of wood chip export markets.
• Almost all lumber imports are from Canada with a small but increasing share from South America.
• Canadian imports do not directly displace demand for southern pine lumber.
• The very small amount of southern pine lumber exports have declined substantially since 1998.
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modified: 30-Nov-2005 created by: John M. Pye |
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