China Buys More of Europe’s Hardwood Logs and Less of America’s
EU countries shipped 626,436 tonnes of hardwood logs outside the bloc in the three months to July, with oak and beech leading the rise.
Logs stacked at a Chinese timber port. Chinese buyers took the largest share of Europe's hardwood log exports in the three months to July, ahead of Vietnam. (Photo Credit: ambient_pix via Shutterstock)
More of Europe’s hardwood logs are leaving the European Union unsawn than a year ago, with exports to buyers outside the bloc reaching €165.6 million in the three months to July, up from €142.0 million. That is according to trade data released last month by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office, with Chinese buyers taking the largest share of those logs.
“The key is to set the conditions so that these raw materials are, wherever possible, also processed in Europe,” Roland Feit, executive director of sales at Abalon Hardwood, said last month when the European Organisation of the Sawmill Industry (EOS) took its case to German Greens MEP Martin Häusling.
It comes as Chinese buyers took €90.6 million of hardwood logs over the three months, up from €71.3 million, with Vietnamese buyers taking most of the rest. Vietnam’s buyers spent most of their money on hardwoods that Eurostat does not break down by species, whilst China’s buyers went mainly for oak and beech.
Oak remains the most valuable species in the trade, with Chinese buyers taking €67.6 million of European oak logs over the three months, up from €53.1 million. By contrast, Vietnam’s oak purchases fell over the same months, whilst its spending on other hardwoods rose.
Beech has also come back into favour with Chinese buyers, after a year in which China cut its beech purchases and beech lost ground to oak in Europe’s export trade. It is the species Abalon specialises in, sawing beech at its mills in Schwalmstadt, Germany, and Heiligenkreuz, Austria, for customers across Europe and beyond.
However, shipments eased from their spring high over the European summer, a pattern the trade has followed in each of the past two years. Chinese buying climbs each spring and falls away by August, whilst Vietnam’s purchases hold far steadier through the year.
China’s purchases of European hardwood logs climb each spring and fall away over the European summer, whilst Vietnam’s buying holds steadier through the year. (Source: Eurostat Comext, EU trade since 2002 by HS2-4-6 and CN8, EU exports of non-coniferous wood in the rough under CN 4403 12, 4403 41 to 4403 49, and 4403 91 to 4403 99 by value, all statistical procedures; series: all markets outside the EU, China, and Vietnam, January 2024 to July 2026. Background photo: ambient_pix via Shutterstock. Graphic: Wood Central)
As it stands, exports outside the bloc are running ahead of last year, reaching €488.6 million over the first seven months, up from €437.0 million. March was busier than any month of the previous two years, with nearly €100 million of hardwood logs leaving the EU in that month alone.
That rise comes two years after Rudolf van Rensburg, co-author of a China outlook by Russ Taylor Global and Margules Groome Consulting, said China was “pivoting from logs to lumber”. He said at the time that the volume of Chinese log imports was unlikely to return to past levels, with logs growing scarcer worldwide.
At the same time, China is buying fewer American hardwood logs than it did two years ago, with Vietnam overtaking it as the top export market for them this year. China’s purchases of American hardwood logs fell to US$261.8 million from January to July, down from $433.7 million over the same months of 2024.
American lawmakers have made a similar case to Europe’s sawmills, urging US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in June to put hardwood lumber, not logs, into China’s $17 billion purchase commitment. The 32 members of Congress wrote that domestic lumber manufacturing should not be “undercut by China” and asked for enforceable checks to ensure the purchases are actually made.
Meanwhile, Chinese buyers have also returned to Central and West Africa’s timber trade this year, with new orders for okoumé reaching producers in Gabon, Cameroon, and the Republic of the Congo. That is according to the International Tropical Timber Organization, which found the renewed demand had steadied a trade facing higher taxes, fuel, and freight costs.
Trucks loaded with tropical hardwood logs queue on the road into Gabon’s Nkok Special Economic Zone outside Libreville, where much of the country’s timber is peeled and sawn before it is exported. (Photo Credit: Supplied)
EOS warned three years ago that Chinese demand was pulling oak, by far Europe’s most popular hardwood species, away from European mills. It speaks for 32,000 sawmills across its member federations and says Europe loses jobs and investment, particularly in rural areas, when its roundwood leaves unprocessed.
“Especially given the many closures of recent years, European policy must avoid additional burdens and enable investment in modern and resource-efficient processing,” Diego Benedetti, economic affairs director at EOS, said.
Belgium’s Fedustria will organise the 11th International Hardwood Conference in Antwerp next month in partnership with EOS and the European Timber Trade Federation (ETTF). The two-day event opens with a tour of the Port of Antwerp, followed by a day on how much hardwood the world’s main markets produce and use.
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