Australia's Forest Industries
Economic and social contribution
Forest industries contribute significantly to the economic and social well-being of rural and regional Australia. These industries occur across a range of sectors including forest growing and management, timber harvesting and haulage, timber sawmilling, processing and manufacturing, pulp and paper manufacturing and timber merchandising.
Forest industries are Australia's second largest manufacturing industry with an annual turnover of $21.4 billion. The industry contributes around 0.6 per cent to Australia's Gross Domestic Product and 6.7 per cent of manufacturing output.
Approximately 76,800 people are directly employed in Australia’s forest and wood products industry, including 13,200 people in the forestry and logging sectors and 63,600 people in the wood manufacturing sectors.
Wood production and consumption
In 2006-07, 27 million cubic metres of logs were harvested from Australia’s production forests for a gross value of around $1.7 billion. Around two-thirds of this log harvest was from plantations with the reminder from native forests. Australia’s total log harvest has increased by 35 per cent over the past ten years consisting of a 75 per cent increase in logs harvested from plantations and a 10 per cent decrease in logs from native forests over this period.
During 2006-07, Australia’s log harvest produced:
- 5.1 million cubic metres of sawnwood
- 1.7 million cubic metres of wood based panels; and
- 3.2 million tonnes of paper and paperboard.
Trade
Australia has traditionally carried a deficit in the trade of its forest and wood products. While total exports of wood products in 2007–08 were $2.5 billion, imports were $4.4 billion, representing a trade deficit of $1.9 billion (see table below). Most of this deficit is in paper products as they account for around half ($2.2 billion) of Australia’s imports in 2007–08.
Sawnwood is also a significant import valued at $492 million in 2007–08. Nearly half of all imported sawnwood comes from New Zealand mostly in the form of softwood timber. Significant wood product imports also come from countries such as China, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The main export from Australia is wood chips with 6.2 million tonnes exported during 2007–08 with a value of over $1 billion. This represents 43 per cent of Australia’s wood product exports. Of Australia’s total woodchip exports in 2007-08, 87 per cent was to Japan.
In 2007–08, exports to Japan made up 39 per cent of the value of Australia’s total wood product exports, while exports to New Zealand and China accounted for 15 per cent each of the total value.
Overview of Australia’s wood and paper product production, consumption and trade
|
|
Unit |
2007-08 |
|---|---|---|
|
Logs harvested |
||
|
Native broad leaved |
’000m3 |
8940 |
|
Plantation broadleaved |
’000m3 |
4607 |
|
Coniferous |
’000m3 |
14,913 |
|
Total |
’000m3 |
28,461 |
|
Gross value of production |
||
|
Broadleaved |
$m |
976 |
|
Coniferous |
$m |
895 |
|
Total |
$m |
1872 |
|
Volume of production |
||
|
Sawnwood |
’000m3 |
5371 |
|
Wood based panels |
’000m3 |
1800 |
|
Paper and paperboard |
kt |
3281 |
|
Apparent Consumption |
||
|
Sawnwood |
’000m3 |
5806 |
|
Wood based panels |
’000m3 |
1981 |
|
Paper and paperboard |
kt |
4338 |
|
Imports |
||
|
Sawnwood |
’000m3 |
784 |
|
|
$m |
492 |
|
Wood based panels |
’000m3 |
483 |
|
|
$m |
284 |
|
Paper and paperboard |
kt |
1847 |
|
|
$m |
2248 |
|
Total |
$m |
4412 |
|
Exports |
||
|
Sawnwood |
’000m3 |
338 |
|
|
$m |
120 |
|
Wood based panels |
’000m3 |
274 |
|
|
$m |
109 |
|
Paper and paperboard |
kt |
790 |
|
|
$m |
635 |
|
Woodchips |
kt |
6166 |
|
|
$m |
1072 |
|
Total |
$m |
2471 |
All of the above information and greater detail can be found in ABARE’s Australian Forest and Wood Products Statistics.
Outlook
Australia is well placed to take advantage of the long term expansion of wood and fibre markets in the Asia-Pacific region. Australia's domestic market also provides a solid investment platform for strategies to replace imports and develop export opportunities.
The high quality of Australia’s production forest resource and world-competiveness of supporting infrastructure, such as transport and manufacturing, make Australia’s forest sector an attractive investment opportunity.
As such, there is a range of future investment planned in Australia’s forest industries including investment in hardwood and softwood sawmills, pulp and paper mills, wood product export facilities and engineered wood product mills.