Global sawlog prices fell in late 2011, especially in lumber export-oriented countries such as Western Canada, Finland, Sweden, Russia and New Zealand, reports the Wood Resource Quarterly. 

Reduced activities in the housing construction sector in China decreased importation of softwood logs and lumber in late 2011, reports the Wood Resource Quarterly.

SEATTLE, WA, Okt. 31, 2011 (RISI) - Note to RISI readers who may feel that we are becoming the "All China -- All the Time" channel: I really did have another subject in mind for this Viewpoint, on South America, but then I received an interesting email from Lithuania and got a bit side-tracked.

As part of FLEGT Asia’s information collection role, a number of forest governance, markets and trade Baseline Studies have been carried out in the region. This study is done for China.

Over recent weeks, export log markets have continued to react to oversupply with inventories building and softening prices. This situation of supply being well out of balance with demand is now very pronounced in China and India, and to a lesser extent in Korea and Japan. Irrespective of whether the primary reasons are due to high inventory/slowing demand or pricing being indexed to China, domestic log and processed product prices have decreased across all markets and general trading conditions have become far more challenging than earlier in the year.