Japan’s Wood Products Import and Forest Sector

Abstract

Over the last few decades, domestic timber has supplied a smaller portion of Japan’s wood consumption, which currently stands at approximately 110 million m³ per year. The country’s self-sufficiency in wood products has declined from almost 90% in 1960 to the current rate of slightly more than 20%. Domestic forestry and forest products industries have degraded because of competitiveness of imported products, high costs of harvesting and processing, and shortage of workers. On the other hand, imports of wood, predominantly in the form of logs, chips and other primary manufactured products, have grown from 6.3 million m³ in 1960 to 89.8 million m³ in 1996. The major suppliers have been traditionally the Pacific Northwest of the United States, British Columbia of Canada, Russian Far East, southeast Asian countries (mostly Malaysia and Indonesia), and Australia. Currently this supply structure is changing rapidly, as imports of logs from North America and Russia are declining, tropical hardwood sources are cut down, and imports of softwood products from new suppliers like New Zealand, Chile, and Nordic countries are increasing. At the same time, traditional as well as new suppliers are increasingly replacing logs and other primary manufactured products with processed value-added products. The overall trend of wood product imports has led to further declines in domestic wood industries, and this has yielded greater opportunities for foreign producers. In order to restore domestic forestry and forest products industries, the government has continually paid for a variety of programs including promotion of domestic wood consumption, subsidies for regional timber production, development and dissemination of new processing technologies, etc. In the early 1990s, the Forestry Agency announced a new initiative aimed at promotion of forestry activities under the name of “River Basin Forestry Management,” which followed introduction of three forestry laws to implement comprehensive measures for pursuing a collective effort and establishing links between forest owners (upstream) and the processing industry (downstream). However, the development of the new initiative will still depend on competitiveness of domestic plantation products against products processed internationally. Promotion programs at the regional level will require a better flow of market information and attainment of greater economic efficiency in harvesting, transport, and manufacturing.