20 | Sector Market Update: Plywood & OSB
◄ This is obviously bad news for the plywood producers, but their plywood also goes into furniture, which is being sold to the US and, given the tariffs imposed by President Trump, that business has also dropped severely.
“The whole supply chain is down,” said the trader. “One of our biggest suppliers has diversified into other markets such as South America (though not Brazil), selling softwood plywood made from Chinese pine and some New Zealand radiata pine.”
The trader also said that in the centre of China, there is an enormous natural pine forest covering three provinces and containing 50 million m3
of masson pine.
“Our supplier has agreed to certify 3.4 million m3
of pine to produce a guaranteed supply for plywood production,” he said. The trader said that the UK market was “dead as a door nail”, with demand low and enquiries few and far between, although he described prices as relatively stable.
Turning to freight rates from China, the dealer said they had almost doubled in the last couple of months. In June 2025, the typical rate was US$1,750 from Quingdao to Felixstowe, but that had risen to US$3,400 in July. “We also supply, from a Chinese mill, real-wood veneered plywood and it has been buying its logs from the US, therefore costs are again rising,” added the trader. He said that the mill is now looking to buy logs in Europe, but, in the strangest of ironies, cannot get the necessary EUDR documents from the European suppliers. “According to our supplier, the EU can’t certify its own logs,” said the bewildered dealer. He also said that Europe is now being targeted by Vietnamese plywood mills where their products are not subject to the high tariffs of the US market.
“The good Vietnamese mills can offer the required quality and the relevant documentation such as EUDR,” he said. “We
now have two such suppliers in Vietnam supplying the EU.”
Summing up the situation in the UK, the dealer said that it was all “doom and gloom”, with demand low, but prices stable. He said he’d heard that some of his UK construction customers are going down to a three-day week because business is so bad. Staying with China, a plywood manufacturer named Rilico, located in Pizhou City, Jiangsu Province, has five existing veneer/LVL/plywood factories, with another plywood factory “Forrasia” currently under construction and scheduled to start production soon. It is reported to be one of the very few plywood manufacturing companies in China to have absolute control over the availability and quality of its own raw material and in addition to having an abundant supply of both FSC and non- FSC Chinese domestic wood species, it also imports its own logs in a variety of FSC and non-FSC species from around the world. It is also one of the few plywood manufacturing companies in China to peel and dry its own veneers.
Rilico is said to be very well positioned to offer plywood in compliance with current and imminent legislation in regard to UKTR, EUTR and EUDR and has CE, FSC, PEFC, ISO9001 certification and has been SMETA audited. Furthermore, it is already fully aligned with EUDR traceability requirements. Rilico also invented PP Plastic-coated concrete shuttering plywood and has recently developed its own formwork system, designed to be used together with PP Plastic-faced plywood and/or traditional phenolic film- faced plywood.
Whilst Rilico’s new factory is scheduled to open in the coming weeks, it is already able to offer an extensive range of plywood products from its existing factories (which are already some of the newest and most modern mills in China).
Turning our attention to the UK, a UK plywood merchant interviewed for this report illustrated what has happened to prices. “Hardwood plywood has gone down in price in five years: It’s now £1 cheaper per panel than it was five years ago. Meanwhile, structural plywood in radiata or elliotis pine, type 3 glued, has gone down from £19.75 per sheet to £19 in five-and-a-half years. There is just a lack of demand in the UK.” The merchant added that, globally, the
market was being driven by Donald Trump’s tariffs and has also been influenced by the weakened dollar [also due to the tariffs]. “Plywood going to the US as furniture, machined components etc, as well as raw plywood, has definitely affected the market,” said the merchant.
Top: Feixian Xiangrong Plate Factory in Linyi City, Shandong Province, which is one of China’s leading producers of panels and plywood Above: European plywood production
TTJ | September/October 2025 |
www.ttjonline.com
“Price has been a disaster for everyone in the chain,” he added. “It must be extremely tough for the importers. Our preferred supplier
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