Kiwis and Aussies join to fight for forest industry future

NEW ZEALAND WOOD PROCESSORS HAVE JOINED WITH THEIR counterparts in Australia to fight for the future of their respective industries in the face of unfair competition from overseas.

The aim of their joint approach is to target the “unfair” subsidies and market distortions used by other countries to support their timber industries, which they claim are harming sawmills and wood processors in New Zealand and Australia.

“We’ve joined together because we face the same trade distortions,” Brian Stanley, Chairman of New Zealand’s Wood Processors and Manufacturers Association told NZ Logger.

“We’re trying to level the playing field because at the moment it certainly isn’t level. The timber and wood processing industry in China is massively subsidised and so is India. Even Canada has policies that allow sawmills to gain favourable log purchasing rates that are 60% below true value.

“Both our industry, and that in Australia, have to compete globally with our wood products and if we want to expand in future we cannot do that unless there is a level playing field. We are on the same path.”

Mr Stanley says he and other members of the WPMA leadership group joined with their counterparts across the Tasman recently to meet Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, Forestry Minister, Anne Ruston and Trade Minister, Steven Ciobo, to voice their concerns and encourage them to back efforts to stamp out trade subsidies and non-tariff barriers.

That has resulted in New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade working with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade to coordinate their approach.

Mr Stanley adds: “Working together we are more likely to achieve success than tackling it on our own.”

The subsidies and non-tariff trade barriers will be among the issues raised by Mr Stanley when he addresses the bi-annual ForestWood conference in Wellington later this month.

His speech, entitled ‘What is the Future of Forestry in New Zealand?’ will also cover what he describes as “the elephant in the room” – log supply, which has led to commercial tensions among some sections of the forest industry.

Mr Stanley says the issue of logs bypassing sawmills in some regions on their way to ports to be exported has created some commercial tensions amongst sawmillers, wood processors and forest managers, and all parties need to sit down to resolve it in the context of processors asking a legitimate question relating to unfair trade and market distortions.

But there is a wider issue at stake, he adds. The lack of new tree planting and large-scale deforestation, coupled with China’s voracious appetite for our raw logs, has created a long-term shortage of wood that is preventing investment in new processing in New Zealand.

And we need more processing, particularly in the pulp sector, to boost forest industry earnings in the future. That won’t happen without more trees in the ground.

Mr Stanley goes on to say that those attending the ForestWood conference this month will be keen to hear about progress on the government’s initiative to plant 500 million new trees in the next decade, which will be outlined by Forestry Minister Shane Jones.

The conference takes place at Te Papa in Wellington on March 21.