KUCHING: Japan’s imports of plywood and assembled wooden flooring from key suppliers, including Malaysia, have contracted sharply this year as compared to 2022.
In January 2023, Japan’s total plywood shipments from Malaysia, Indonesia, China and Vietnam fell to 122,600 cubic metres (cu m) from 185,200 cu m in January 2022 or down by 62,600 cu m or nearly 34 per cent.
The downtrend continued in February when Japan’s total imports plunged to 106,200 cu m from 143,900 cu m in February 2022 or a decline of over 26 per cent, according to data from Japan Finance Ministry quoted by International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO) Tropical Timber Market Report (April 1-15, 2023).
The combined plywood volume imported by Japan in the first two months of 2023 was 228,800 cu m against 329,100 cu m in the January-February 2022 period.
“The volume of plywood imports into Japan has been declining since the beginning of 2022 as milling of domestic logs for plywood has increased.
“In 2022, Malaysia and Indonesia accounted or over 80 per cent of the volume of Japan’s plywood imports and while this dominance of imports is being maintained, the total volumes of imports from all sources have dropped,” said the report.
The report said in February 2023, Japan’s shipments of plywood from Malaysia were down over 26 per cent year-on-year, from 61,000 cu m (2022) to 44,900 (2023) and shipments from Indonesia were down almost 30 per cent — from 56,800 cu m to 40,600 cu m — during the same period.
“Shippers of plywood in China saw a 47 per cent drop in volume imported by Japan in February (7,800 cu m) from 14,700 cu m (February 2022) mainly because of the Chinese New Year celebrations.
Month-on-month, there was a 34 per cent drop in the volume of plywood imported from Vietnam (from 11,400 cu m to 12,900 cu m),” it added. In January 2023, Japan’s plywood shipments from Malaysia shrank to 40,300 cu m (January 2022: 78,600 cu m) while shipment from Indonesia nosedived to 49,200 cu m (73,900 cu m).
Imports from China decreased to 13,700 cu m (15,900 cu m) but shipments from Vietnam rose to 19,400 cu m (16,800 cu m). On assembled wooden flooring (HS441871-79), the ITTO report said there was a massive correction in Japan’s imports of the products in February 2023, bringing the value of imports back to the same level of below 160 million yen (RM5.28 million) as in December 2022.
The January 2023 import value was more than 320 million yen (RM10.55 million).
“A possible explanation for the correction (other than that the January data was incorrect) is the strengthening of the yen against major currencies in January this year which importers took advantage of.
“However, the value of imports of other wood products in January did not show the same surge as seen with flooring.”
The report said the value of Japan’s imports of the assembled wooden flooring in February 2023 fell 30 per cent year-on-year, and that there has been a steady decline in the import value since mid-2022. Month-on-month, the value of February imports were down almost 55 per cent.
Three shippers accounted for over 70 per cent of Japan’s imports of assembled flooring in February: China (44 per cent), Austria (20 per cent) and Thailand (8 per cent). There were no shipments from Vietnam for the month, mostly because of the Tet celebrations.
Meanwhile, the Japan Lumber Reports (JLR) said METRO Particle Co Ltd has obtained certification of Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS) on particleboards and low-pressure melamine boards on Feb 27, 2023. METRO Particle, one of the METROPLY Group’s companies, produces particleboards, lowpressure melamine boards and high-pressure melamine boards.
The company’s particleboards consist of 95 per cent gum and five per cent eucalyptus or fruitwood.
The company, according to JLR, will increase using eucalyptus because it owns an afforested area of eucalyptus in southern part of Bangkok.
“Urea resin and melamine resin are used as glue mainly and sometimes MDI (methylene diphenyl diisocyanate) is used as glue. The company supplies 80 per cent production to overseas and 20 per cent of products to Thailand. Productive capacity of JIS particleboard is 300,000 cu m annually and of JIS low-pressure melamine board is 900, sheets annually.
“The company supplies about 4,000 low-pressure melamine boards to Kenai Co Ltd in Japan in a month.
Since the company got certification of JIS, production of low-pressure melamine boards will be raised to 40,000 from 4,000 boards.
The company also produces MDF (medium-density fibreboard), plywood, hard boards, LVL, wood veneers, flush doors and laminated floorings,” added JLR, whose report was reproduced in ITTO report.
