On 28 June-1July 2005, the European Panel Federation (EPF) and the European Federation of the Plywood Industry (FEIC) organised their General Assembly in Riga, Latvia on the kind invitation of the companies JSC “Bolderaja” and Latvijas Finieris. For the second time, the federations shared a joint programme, providing the participants a unique occasion to meet the key players in the wood-based panels industries, as well as suppliers and technical institutes. With a record number of more than 200 participants, this joint event proved to be a historical success.
Mr Ladislaus Döry, President of the European Panel Federation, presented the situation in the wood-based panels industries. Especially the particleboard industry registered a solid recovery. Within the EPF member countries, which account for about 90% of the total European output, particleboard production amounted to 34.3 million m³ in 2004 and reached as such a new highest level, topping the 2003 level by 5.2%. Moreover, even the previous record level from the year 2000 was beaten by more than 1 million m³. This upturn was underpinned by reinforced demand from the end-user markets. In particular the furniture market and the resumed construction activities gave clear momentum to particleboard sales.
Within the EPF member countries, consumption has risen by 5.8% during 2004 up to 31.1 million m³, thereby approaching the 2000 record very closely. With some new capacities coming on stream in 2005 and 2006, the prospects for further growth in production and demand are favourable for the particleboard industry, which enjoys also a good operating rate and a healthy supply/demand balance.
MDF production increased by 5.7% up to a new record level of 11.9 million m³. Total demand increased by 10.1% to 11.4 million m³, driven once more by continued strong growth of the laminate flooring industry, which has become the most important market for MDF in Europe and now accounts for 40% of all sales. Exports, on the other hand, were rather quiet. For 2005, MDF consumption is expected to grow further, although probably at a lower pace.
The European OSB industry registered the highest growth rates with production amounting to 2.8 million m³, which means that the previous record was beaten by almost 15%. European demand for OSB has equally risen by 15% during 2004 to set a new record level at 2.4 million m³. In absolute terms, this means an augmentation by more than 300,000 m³ in line with the additionally produced output, which is one of the highest in ten years. For 2005, the OSB production is firmly expected to surpass 3 million m³.
The main current actions of EPF include in first instance the co-sponsorship of the CEI-Bois roadmap to 2010, which aims at making wood and wood-based products leading materials by the year 2010 and will be an important priority during the next few years. Secondly, EPF wishes to safeguard the availability of wood raw material in particular in view of the serious competition with the state-supported bio-energy industry. Thirdly, EPF supports its members in implementing the CE-marking for wood-based panels for construction and monitors that Member States abolish their existing barriers to trade and do not create new ones. Furthermore, EPF started research projects on moisture resistance and reaction to fire. EPF supports promising projects within the 6th European Research Framework Programme and prepares the 7th Framework Programme by contributing to the Technological Platform created by the Forest-Based Industries. EPF also monitors regulatory and public issues. In this respect, in particular the developments for chemical substances like formaldehyde and VOCs are important. Finally, Mr Döry points the attention to the redesigned website of EPF (www.europanels.org) as well as to specialised websites on MDF (www.mdf-info.org) and OSB (www.osb-info.org).
Mr Nicola Reni, President of the European Federation of the Plywood Industry, was pleased to inform that the membership of FEIC has been expanded considerably over the past recent years. As such, the capacity and production output reported by FEIC now cover more important volumes. Within the FEIC member countries, plywood production increased by 2.9% during 2004 up to a new record level at nearly 3.8 million m³. Especially the strong performance of Europe’s largest plywood producer, Finland, boosted the overall result. In addition, also France recovered markedly during 2004, in particular thanks to a dynamic coniferous plywood sector. Italy, by contrast, had to witness the closure of some important (poplar) plywood mills at the beginning of the year, which accounted together for 14.5% of the total Italian production capacity. The total European production of blockboard in 2004 amounted to 256,000 m³, which is 4.4% less than in the previous year and thus extends the downward trend in the European results since 2000, in particular due to the lower production in Germany, Europe’s main blockboard producer with a share of nearly 55%.

Plywood consumption within the FEIC member countries registered an increase of 0.9% in 2004. The previous year had recorded an exceptionally strong upswing with plywood consumption soaring by nearly 7%. During 2004, demand amounted to more than 4.1 million m³ and thus remained at a high level. However, there are some major consumers of plywood that are fully dependent on imports to meet their domestic demand, such as the UK, Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland. The UK is of particular importance since it is Europe’s largest consumer of plywood. These countries are not included in the FEIC statistics, but recorded a significant increase, spurring the EU-15 result by 4.9%.

Nevertheless, due to the great volumes of plywood that are imported into Europe, the FEIC plywood manufacturers are facing strong competitive pressure on their local markets. During 2004, imports of plywood into the EU-25 amounted to 5.8 million m³, while demand amounted to just over 6.1 million m³. This demonstrates the difficult market position that the European manufacturers have to cope with. The most aggressive competitor, who is disturbing the European markets since four years, is China. Despite the fact that anti-dumping duties on the imports of okoumé plywood from China of up to 66.7% have been in place since November 2004, the European plywood manufacturers are still suffering. Indeed, as expected, the Chinese exporters have been very inventive in finding solutions to circumvent these duties. In addition, even though the imports of officially declared okoumé plywood dropped during 2004, the imports of plywood in general continued to increase at a stunning pace and more than doubled in 2004 as compared to 2003. Since these imports also concern exceptionally cheap priced products and include other types of plywood products, an increasing number of European plywood manufacturers is now affected by these imports. FEIC therefore decided to launch a study to investigate the impact of imports from non-European regions on the competitiveness of the European plywood producers.

Finally, the FEIC members unanimously nominated Mr Uldis Bikis, Chairman of Latvijas Finieris, as the
new President of FEIC.

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