Sammlung von Newsfeeds

FSC is extending the suspension of the Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the implementation of the FSC Remedy Framework until the end of June 2025.  Source: Timberbiz The extension of the suspension is due to a conflict of interest identified between Domtar and the law firm FSC identified for conducting the legal review of APP and Domtar’s corporate groups. FSC is identifying a different independent, third-party law firm to conduct this legal review. In January 2025, FSC suspended APP’s remedy MoU until the end of March 2025 because of the changes APP and Domtar announced regarding the concentration of sole beneficial ownership of the two corporate groups. FSC is commissioning a legal review of the corporate groups of Domtar and APP to better understand the implications and the effect of this change, and any impacts on the scope of the APP remedy process and the MoU. FSC disassociated from APP’s entire corporate group in 2007. To remedy the environmental and social harms APP caused in the past, FSC and APP signed a remedy MoU in 2024 to implement the FSC Remedy Framework. Earlier this year, Jackson Wijaya, the sole beneficial owner of Domtar (an FSC certificate holder), took over as APP’s sole beneficial owner.

In 2024, Brazil exported nearly 20 million metric tons (MT) of pulp, marking a 3% increase in volume compared to 2023 and a 34% rise in export value. Source: Timberbiz These numbers are expected to grow as planned pulp mill investments come to fruition. Some of these include: In December 2024, Suzano S.A. inaugurated the world’s largest single-line pulp mill in Ribas do Rio Pardo, Mato Grosso do Sul, which has an annual production capacity of 2.55 million MT. Chile’s Arauco is building a US$4.6 billion bleached eucalyptus market pulp mill that will be the world’s largest pulp mill project with 3.5 million MT/year capacity when it starts up in 2027. Dissolving pulp producer Bracell has earmarked US$4 billion to build a 2.8 million MT/year pulp mill in Água Clara. Competition for land in Brazil and investments in pulp production capacity have been key factors in rising log prices for the past two decades. However, Brazil’s pulp producers have the advantage of a huge and expanding planted forest resource to provide wood fibre. The country’s planted tree area has expanded to reach 10.2 million hectares, while protecting and expanding the wood fibre resources plays an important role in pulp producers’ investment decisions. Suzano’s R$22.2 billion Cerrado Project investment includes R$6.3 billion for timber plantations and logistics, while Klabin announced plans at the end of 2023 to purchase Arauco’s forestry assets in Paraná for US$1.16 billion. Brazil is the largest supplier of hardwood pulp to the US, and its pulp industry is waiting to see how it might be affected by the current US enthusiasm for tariffs. There has been some speculation that any increase in prices of Northern Bleached Softwood Kraft Pulp (NBSK) as tariffs hit Europe and Canada could push US tissue producers to switch to hardwood pulp, increasing business for Latin American producers. Brazil’s pulp industry is on a promising trajectory, fuelled by substantial investments in new pulp mills and the expansion of timber plantations. While challenges such as increasing log prices and land competition persist, Brazil’s extensive planted forest resources offer a significant competitive advantage. As the leading supplier of hardwood pulp to the US, Brazil stands to gain from potential shifts in global pulp demand. For further insights into Brazil’s pulp mill investments and wood fibre costs.

JCB is set to double the size of a new factory currently under construction in Texas as the company confirmed today that newly announced tariffs will impact its business in the short-term. Source: Timberbiz JCB has been manufacturing in the USA for 50 years, and last year bought 400 acres of land in San Antonio after recognising the need to produce even more machines in North America, where the company’s existing manufacturing plant in Savannah, Georgia, has operated for 25 years and employs around 1,000 people. The original plan for a 500,000 square feet factory in San Antonio has now been revised and JCB is forging ahead with plans to double its size to one million square feet. The new US$500 million plant is due to start production next year and employ up to 1,500 people and will build on JCB’s growth in North America. JCB has been in business for 80 years this year and it is well accustomed to change. “The United States is the largest market for construction equipment in the world and President Trump has galvanised us into evaluating how we can make even more products in the USA, which has been an important market for JCB since we sold our first machine there in 1964,” Lord Bamford, JCB Chairman said. JCB CEO Graeme Macdonald said that in the short term, the imposition of tariffs will have a significant impact on the business. ‘However, in the medium term, our planned factory in San Antonio will help to mitigate the impact. We are thankful that the tariff is only 10% and we can only hope that the UK Government will conclude negotiations on a trade deal in the coming days and weeks.”

As the US President continues to dismantle world trade by introduction of tariffs and other means, IndustryEdge continues to cast a spotlight onto the facts. Source: IndustryEdge This is one in a series from IndustryEdge, that will address specific details of bilateral and multilateral trade in the materials, sectors and industries in which we are involved, for both Australia and New Zealand. Australia has been hit with the ‘base’ 10% tariffs on its imports to the USA. This will impact wood and wood products trade, as well as wood products trade. However, many other countries especially countries with whom Australia has significant trading positions, face far higher tariffs for trade into the USA. As the world has come to learn, the rationale for the tariffs is a mix of misunderstanding, economic voodoo and a failure to check whether some locations were even countries or inhabited by anything more than penguins. Global capital and stock markets have faltered significantly since the announcement (which has already come into force). Investors are recalculating risks and devaluing assets the world over. Major institutions now say global recession is a 50/50 bet and a US recession is pretty much assured. It’s a rerun of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that created a trade war that extended the Great Depression by years and was opposed almost universally outside the US and by nearly all economists and business leaders. Sound familiar? Below, we outline the headline facts of Australia’s trade in wood products with the USA. In calendar year 2024, Australia operated a trade deficit for wood and wood products with the USA, valued at AUD84.2 million. That is, Australia exported wood and wood products valued at AUD9.0 million, but imports from the USA were valued at AUD93.2 million. That balance of trade deficit was the lowest in many years. Imports from the USA accounted for 3.5% of total wood and wood products imports by value. The USA was the fifth largest supplier to Australia, with total imports valued at AUD2.657 billion. Exports to the USA accounted for just 0.5% of total wood and wood products exports by value. The USA received the ninth highest value of Australian products, which in aggregate were valued at AUD1.639 billion, dominated by woodchip exports. Australia’s Bilateral Balance of Trade with the USA in Wood & Wood Products: 2017 – 2024 (AUDM) Source: ABS, derived and IndustryEdge In 2024, Australia exported wood and wood products valued at AUDFob1,638.9 million. Nearly one third went to New Zealand and close to 15% was delivered to the USA. Australia’s exports went to 155 countries over the year. The chart shows the top five ‘countries’, the table shows the top 14. It is notable that ‘No Country Details’ dominates. This is the entirety of Australia’s hardwood and softwood woodchip exports, most of which are delivered to China and Japan. Australia’s Wood & Wood Products Exports by Main Country: 2024 (AUDM & %) In 2024, Australia imported wood and wood products valued at an enormous AUDFob2,656.5 million. China delivered 42.0 % of that – more than AUD1.1 billion worth, with the USA in fifth place behind Indonesia, New Zealand and Malaysia. The chart shows the top five countries, the table shows the top 12, but again, it is relevant that Australia received shipments from 126 countries in 2024. Australia’s Wood & Wood Products Imports by Main Country: 2024 (AUDM & %) The regrettable, worrying and seemingly ill-considered positioning of the US President can have many effects. Not least is a slowdown in global economic conditions, as trade reduces and as a minimum, is completely disrupted. In arguing the tariffs amounted to ‘liberation’ for America, we are entitled to ask the proponent, Mr Trump, ‘liberation from what?’ We will resist the temptation to borrow from the Orwellian playbook, in which liberation may be considered code for enslavement. Instead, it seems likely the liberation to which Mr Trump refers, is liberation from the rules of global trade. In turning to old-fashioned and failed protectionist measures and engaging the world in a trade war that only the most desperate sycophants and client states are likely to join, the US President is retreating to isolationism, masked by an increasingly disturbing version of nationalism. As The Economist magazine wrote this week: “Although Mr Trump has committed one of the worst policy blunders of all time, he was lucky enough to inherit a strong economy. How much pain can it take?” Retaliatory actions are already underway against US manufactured goods and companies. That is hardly surprising, and not a recipe for reinvigorated manufacturing. The extent of consumer-level reactions against US products may never be fully understood, but can be observed to some extent, in respect of Tesla’s electric car sales. When the Smoot-Hawley Act was in full force in 1931-33, the US economy tanked: GDP collapsed, both imports and exports fell dramatically, and the unemployment rate doubled. Arguably, those tariffs extended the Depression. By 1934, the tariffs were much reduced, though it took the Second World War for the US to recover properly. Following the intercession of World War II, the global trade architecture heralded by the Bretton Woods Agreement, the International Trade Organisation (ITO) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (the USA and Australia were among the eight original signatories) were quickly installed, heralding a period of substantial and open international trade. When the World Trade Organisation replaced the ITO and the GATT in 1995, both countries were again at the forefront. Today, that openness and the architecture supporting it, is again threatened by US isolationism. The hyperbole of the US President describing the imposition of universal tariffs as ‘Liberation Day’ requires comment. We need to unpick this language, in order to understand its real meaning. In imposing unilateral tariffs, the USA is withdrawing from the eight decades long multilateral rules-based system that has governed international trade since the end of World War II. If this is liberation, it is liberation from obligations to other nations and to […]

Green construction materials from the top of New Zealand’s South Island will be used in new multi-storey buildings being constructed at Parliament. Sources: The Nelson Mail, The Press Nelson Pine Industries will be providing more than 700 cubic meters of Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) timber, which will form part of the mass timber frame for the Museum Street building, instead of using steel or concrete. Company chief executive Kai Kruse said the LVL timber, which was made using only logs from the top of the South Island, had a high level of seismic resilience. “As well as being lighter and stronger than traditional steel or concrete structures, using a mass timber frame was the more environmentally conscious choice,” he said. The framing will arrive in Wellington from April in partly assembled sections and will be installed three storeys a time. “This LVL also has outstanding green credentials, which will contribute to the Museum Street building being net carbon zero. “As part of the mass timber frame, it will sequester 201 tons of carbon,” Kruse said. Construction of the new buildings, which are to house MPs and staff within the parliamentary precinct in Wellington, began in 2022 and are scheduled to be completed by late 2026. “This LVL also has outstanding green credentials, which will contribute to the Museum St building being net carbon zero. “As part of the mass timber frame, it will sequester 201 tons of carbon,” Kruse said. Construction of the new buildings, which are to house MPs and staff within the parliamentary precinct in Wellington, began in 2022 and are scheduled to be completed by late 2026.