Lumber exports from British Columbia to China increased six-fold in January after exports for the whole of 2009 more than doubled, the Canadian province reported Monday.
Speaking on a conference call from the provincial capital Victoria, Pat Bell, British Columbia Minister of Forests and Range, said 127 million board feet of lumber was exported to China in January, up from 20 million board feet a year earlier.
Last year, China bought 1.63 billion board feet of lumber, up from the 784 million board feet shipped in 2008. The exports were valued at 327 million Canadian dollars (320 million U.S. dollars), the equivalent annual output of 6.5 interior sawmills in the western province.
Bell attributed the increase to China's booming construction sector, British Columbia's competitive pricing that is cheaper than traditional Russian wood suppliers, an aggressive courting of the country by the Canadian province and what he says is the close proximity of the two markets.
Bell will travel to Beijing on Friday, his fourth trip to the country over the past two years, with the intention of signing a memorandum of understanding with China's Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development.
The MOU is to build a six-story wood frame structure, which is a first for China. China builds a significant number of six-story apartment buildings every year, the most common form of accommodation, Bell said./.