Changing patterns in wood trade: the emerging EU regional market

In the last decade many political and socio-economical drivers have been characterizing the European timber market. Since the global demand for timber products in emerging economies has increased, Europe has gradually diminished its leading role on the international timber market. At the same time, the legal requirements for placing timber in the EU market have become stricter trough the implementation of the Regulations (EU) 2173/2005 and 995/2010. Our study aims to demonstrate that, due to these (and other) driving forces, the EU timber market is subjected to a regionalization process, with a growing concentration of trade flows among European countries. To test this hypothesis the research analyses the EU roundwood and sawnwood markets, trying to identify their most recent trends. Starting from 2005-2014 UN Comtrade data, the research aims to assess the level of regionalization of the EU timber market, through trade-related indicators such as changes in the number of trading partners for selected EU countries and the trends in extra-EU timber imports. Results show how, after the economic crisis (2008), the role of the intra-EU trade in roundwood and sawnwood has suddenly risen, while importsbof tropical timber dropped. In 2012-2014, although less evident, these trends continued.