In July, the GTI-Woodbased Panel (GTI-WBP) Index registered 42.0%, a decrease of 4.3 percentage points from the previous month, was below the critical value (50%) for four consecutive months, indicating that the business prosperity of wood-based panel industry represented by the index shrank from last month.

On the demand side, affected by the downturn in the global timber market, the demand for wood-based panels declined. This month, both the new orders index and the export orders index were below the critical value of 50%, recording 40.0% and 44.9%, respectively. Overall, the reduction in domestic orders for sample enterprises was significantly larger than the reduction in export orders.

On the supply side, the production index registered 39.1%, was below the critical value for four consecutive months, revealing that for the sample enterprises, the total production volume of wood-based panels continued to decline. The downturn in the global construction and real estate industries had, to some extent, restrained the willingness of enterprises to produce.

From a price perspective, the purchase price index for raw materials registered 57.6%, marking the third time in the past four months that it had been above the critical value, and indicating an overall upward trend in raw material prices. The rise in transportation costs and the insufficient raw material inventory in some countries due to the rainy season had led to such trend of the purchase prices of raw materials.

In terms of market conditions and developments, the monitoring data from the Industrial Development Planning Institute under China’s National Forestry and Grassland Administration shows that in the first half of 2024, the plywood and fiberboard industries in China had seen a decline in the number of enterprises and a contraction in total production capacity, indicating further industry restructuring. In contrast, the particleboard industry had shown a further increase in both the number of enterprises and the total production capacity. In June, Brazil's tropical plywood export volume remained stable compared to the same period last year, reaching 2,900 m3, and recently in the domestic market, the demand for plywood had shown signs of recovery. In the middle of June, the construction materials cost index released by the Statistics Malaysia indicated a slight increase in the prices of the country’s building materials such as plywood.

GTI-Woodbased Panel (GTI-WBP) Report - July 2024.pdf