On November 11, the Timber News Network reported that the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry recently released data showing that as of September this year, the export of Indonesian wood products had reached US $11.07 billion, an increase of 13.1% over the same period last year; In just nine months, it reached 81.6% of the total export value (US $13.57 billion) in 2021.

Indonesia mainly exports wood and wood products to the Asian market, and China is one of its largest markets. However, under the circumstance that China strictly implements the control measures for the COVID-19 and the market demand continues to be sluggish, Indonesia’s export of wood and wood products to China has slowed down. As of September this year, the value of Indonesian timber and wood products exported to China was only 2.36 billion US dollars, down 21.1% year on year. As China’s domestic market demand continued to decline in the second half of the year, Indonesia adjusted its export structure of wood and wood products to Asia and increased its exports to Japan and South Korea. Data shows that as of September this year, Indonesia’s timber export to Japan has increased by 15% year-on-year, with the export volume reaching US $1.14 billion; Exports to South Korea increased by 22%, with an export value of 585 million US dollars. The export growth to the Indian market is more robust. In the first nine months of this year, the export volume to India has reached 361 million US dollars, up 35% year on year.

European and American markets are mixed. Under the influence of inflation and rising interest rates, the demand of the US market has declined, and Indonesia’s exports of wood and wood products to the US are slowing down. Although Indonesia’s exports to the United States grew throughout the year, the situation reversed in September. From January to September this year, the export volume of American wood products was only 1.77 billion US dollars, down 19% compared with the same period last year (2.19 billion US dollars); Indonesia’s furniture exports to the United States declined even more. Compared with the scale of US $1.41 billion in the same period last year, the export volume this year dropped by about 40% to only US $849 million. However, Indonesia’s exports of wood and wood products to the EU and the UK markets increased significantly. In the first nine months of this year, Indonesia’s exports to the EU and the United Kingdom increased by 54% year-on-year, reaching 1.3 billion US dollars, significantly higher than its exports to the Asian market.

Indonesian officials from the Ministry of Finance said that local forestry companies need to make efforts to diversify their export markets and transfer their exports to the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan and India as much as possible to reduce the losses caused by the decline in demand in China and the United States. Although the import scale of EU countries to Indonesia’s timber and wood products is still lower than that of China and the United States, it can be expected that the EU or India will become the third largest export market of Indonesia. On the whole, compared with last year, the export of Indonesian wood products accelerated significantly in the first nine months. However, it is not easy for Indonesia to maintain its export growth due to the continuous downturn in demand in China and the United States, the major export markets.