The Timber Supply and Demand Conference of Japan, which is formed by five groups of imported wood products, came up with the projection of demand for 2016, as ITTO reports.
According to the projection, there will not be any significant change on both Japanese import of logs and lumber.
Japan's housing starts are expected to exceed over 2015 then they will decline again in 2017, so imports of wood products are likely to decline again in 2017.
Total Japanese demand for imported logs and lumber is expected at 9,608,000 cbms, almost the same as 2015. New housing starts in 2016 are estimated about 940,000 units as opposed to 910- 920,000 units in 2015, about 2-3 % increase. Rush-in demand before the consumption tax increase to 10% starting April of 2017 seems to be insignificant.
Noticeable change is import of North American logs, which is estimated to increase by 2.6%. It decreased by 15% in 2015 from 2014, which was too much so this seems to be the reason for the recovery. Shifting to domestic species and production curtailment by plywood mills in 2015 was responsible for this decrease.
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