The Global Timber Index (GTI) Report in October 2023 shows that since the beginning of this year, the Chinese government has rolled out a series of policies to support the development of real estate and household furnishing industries, such as the “Notice on Several Measures to Promote Household Furnishing Consumption” and the “Circular on Optimizing the Criteria for the Recognition of Housing Units in Personal Housing Mortgage”. Recently, bonus from the above-mentioned policies began to be released, driving the development of the timber market in China. This month, China's superior timber enterprises saw an increase in both orders and production volume, with GTI-China index registering 55.2%, an increase of 17.9 percentage points from the previous month.

The GTI-Brazil index of new export orders increased by 15.8 percentage points from the previous month, and the values of harvesting, production, and orders showed signs of stopping decline. The GTI-ROC harvesting index increased by 6.5 percentage points from the previous month, indicating there was some improvement on the wood supply side. Indonesia's new orders index increased by 14.8 percentage points from the previous month, suggesting significant improvement on the timber demand side. The GTI indexes of Gabon, Malaysia and Mexico were still at the contraction range below 50%, the sales of logs, plywood, wood products and some other products didn't go well, and the market prices were declining.

This month, enterprises of the GTI pilot countries put forward some new views and suggestions on promoting the development of the timber industry. For instance, Mexican enterprises wished to have regular training from government agencies regarding changes to regulations, and suggested the trade links between industrialists and suppliers of raw materials should be strengthened. Brazilian enterprises recommended an analysis on internal storage of finished products in order to minimize costs at the port. Malaysian enterprises wanted to search for new markets of plantation-based sawn timber.

GTI Report - October 2023.pdf