Study on China's timber resource shortage and import structure:natural forest protection program outlook,1998 to 2008

Hongqiang Yang (), Ying Nie and Chunyi Ji

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The state of China's ecological environment has improved to some extent since the Chinese government initiated the Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) in 1998. The logging prohibition and limitation policies adopted by the NFPP, however, have reduced domestic timber supply. Together with the thriving economy, decreasing domestic timer supply continues to widen the gap between supply and demand. Importation is considered to be the primary solution to this issue, making China the world's largest timber importer. China's major timber suppliers are Russia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Gabon, among which Russia accounts for more than 61 percent of China's total timber imports. The relatively cheaper conifers imported from Russia account for more than 60 percent of all imported timber, with volumes continually increasing because of the rapid pace at which China has been implementing its infrastructure projects. In addition, as living standards continue to improve, requirements for home decor and furniture also grow, further increasing the demand for tropical to temperate timber. In the long term, imports will remain the main solution to the insufficient domestic timber supply in China.

Keywords: NFPP; timber resource shortage; timber import structure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F18 L73 O13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-08
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published in Forest Products Journal Vol. 60,.No. 5(2010): pp. 408-414

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/32738/1/MPRA_paper_32738.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:32738

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().