Indonesia’s plywood industry is facing the prospect of a further 40% drop in exports, according to the ITTO’s Tropical Timber Market Report.
The prediction is made by Abbas Adhar, deputy chairman of the Association of Indonesian Wood Panel Producers (APKINDO) and is based on the fact that the major importing companies of the US, the EU and Japan had yet to place any orders with Indonesian plywood manufacturers for 2009.
Art its peak in 1993, around 90% of the 10 million m3 of Indonesian plywood manufactured was destined for export, but by 2008 production had declined to 3.1 million m3, itself a drop of 27% on the previous year.
In 2008 2.5 million m3 of plywood worth US$1.5bn was exported from Indonesia.
