The decline was mainly in imports from tropical country producers, while imports from China, Russia and Canada increased.
China exported 1.83 million m3 of plywood to the US in 2016, up 2% from 2015. China’s share in total US hardwood plywood imports grew from 55% in 2015 to 58% in 2016.
Russia surpassed Indonesia in 2016 to become the second largest source of US plywood imports. Imports from Indonesia fell 35% to 321,812m3, although the value of imports decreased only 14%.
Plywood imports from Malaysia were 65,110m3 in 2016, down 17% from 2015.
Imports from other countries were slightly down in 2016, although Italy and Cambodia expanded shipments to the US in 2016. Italy’s exports were up 42%, while imports from Cambodia increased 35% to 19,459m3
Tropical hardwood veneer imports were worth US$233.7m in 2016, up 14% from the previous year. Imports from many leading suppliers doubled from 2015, including from Italy, India, Ghana and Cameroon.
Italy was the largest supplier of tropical veneer in 2016 at US$15.9mi, followed by China (US$9.6m).
India, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana each shipped over US$6m worth of tropical veneer to the US in 2016. Veneer imports from Cameroon doubled from 2015 to US$2.6m.
