Chapter 4. CASE STUDY ON THE PLYWOOD INDUSTRY IN CHINA8
PrefaceThis project was a follow-up to a workshop on China’s Forest
Products Statistics conducted by the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International
Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) and the Asia-Pacific
Forest Network for Sustainable Management and Rehabilitation(APFNet) in Haikou, China from 1-3 April, 2013. This study
has assessed the history and present status of the plywood
industry in China by completing a detailed literature review,expert interviews, and analysing completed questionnaires
from 308 plywood mills (including on-site visits of several
mills by project members). This report is a synthesis of the
major findings from the study.

volume in 2001 and by value in 2002. In 2003 the country
became the largest producer in the world, producing
165.5 million m3 in 2015 with an average annual increaseof 15.8 million m3. However, since 2008 production has
shifted away from Hebei and Zhejiang provinces toGuangxi province. This is the largest forestry province
in the country and has become a new cluster for plywood
production.
Since 2000 the plywood industry has developed rapidly andgone through three main transitions.
1.

The location has moved from the forested regions to theeconomically developed regions.

2.

Ownership has shifted from state-owned enterprises toprivate enterprises.

Product description

3.

Plywood refers to manufactured panels made up of three ormore thin plies (layers) of rotary peeled or sliced veneer thatare glued and pressed together with the grains of adjacentlayers arranged at right angles. According to FAO’s definition,
plywood also includes blockboard, which is made of a core ofwooden blocks (not veneer) that are glued together and covered
with quality veneer on both sides through compression using
machines. Plywood has many advantages over other wood
products, including dimensional stability, availability in large
sizes, good decorative features, and excellent workability. It
is largely used to make furniture (more than 60 percent), butalso for interior decorating, moulding, wood flooring, doors
and windows, packaging materials, interior panelling, andrenovation.

The source of raw material has shifted from natural forests
to plantation forests.

Despite China’s status as the largest producer and exporter of
plywood in the world, it is still behind other advanced countries
in terms of milling technology and staff training.

Overview

The development of China’s plywood industry can be divided
into five eras:
1.

1920-1949: The industry was in its infancy; plywood
production in 1949 was only 16 900 m3.

2.

1950-1980: Most plywood was produced in forested
regions, mainly in the northeast (Heilongjiang, Jilin and
Liaoning provinces) and southeast (Shanghai, Jiangxi andFujian). Total production in 1980 was 330 000 m3, with anaverage annual increase of 10 400 m3.

Main production regions
Before the reforms in China, all plywood industries werestate-owned enterprises, mainly located in regions where
there were wood industries. They constituted both producers
and retailers, with raw materials coming primarily from stateproduced logs. Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai were the main
consumers of plywood. With the implementation of the naturalforest protection programme, the main plywood production
regions have moved from the northeast (Heilongjiang, Jilinand Liaoning) and southeast (Jiangxi and Fujian), where forest
resources were sufficient, to Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu andZhejiang provinces, where the economy was well-developed but
natural forest resources were not necessarily adequate. However,as fast-growing plantations were numerous in these provinces,
there were plenty of raw materials and availability of low-costlabour, which aided the development of the industry.
China’s main regions of plywood production are now centred in
the eastern and southern coastal provinces, where the processesof plywood production are implemented across different mills,
some of which are specialized in processing veneer, some inprocessing plywood, and others in processing overlaid plywood.
These different mills, just like continuous workshops in the
plywood production line, form large plywood clusters, and theseclusters provide financial assistance, efficient utilization of woodand other materials. They also form a network of economies ofscale and attract further investment in infrastructure, thus helping
to reduce production costs and market risks, and strengthening
the competitive advantages of the individual enterprises within
the clusters.

3.

1981-1990: The industry – mostly concentrated in
Guangdong province but also present in Hebei andShandong – was growing rapidly. Plywood production in1990 was 759 000 m3, with average growth of 41 000 m3
a year.

4.

1991-2000: Plywood production was developing
in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. Several private
enterprises emerged to form clusters. Production in 2000
was 9.9 million m3, with an average annual increase of
888 000 m3.

5.

2001-present: The plywood industry has grownexponentially. China had a trade surplus of plywood by

Such structures have been established in Linyi in Shandong
province and Pizhou in Jiangsu province. The main clusters of
plywood industries are provided in Figure 4.1.

Study undertaken by the Research Institute of Forestry Policy and Information,
Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China

China’s main blockboard industry is distributed across five
regions: east, north, central, south and northeast (see Figure 4.2).

8

Biennial Review 2015-2016  41

Chapter 4

History

China plywood industries

Figure 4.1: Distribution of plywood clusters

Fujian, Shandong and Hebei provinces. Their investment scale
is quite low – less than CNY100 000 (US$156 600) – and theyuse simple equipment. Products are not of such high quality
and are mainly used for concrete forming in construction and as
materials of low-quality furniture and decorative panels. They
belong to the low-end products in the international market,
with an advantage in price. They mostly maintain a simple
replication of existing technologies, making it difficult toraise their competitiveness through innovation. Most of theseenterprises are original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for
foreign trade companies, so their production is sensitive to thechanges of external markets. The average annual production
capacity is 5 000-10 000 m3.

Production of plywood and blockboard 9
Main plywood cluster
Figure 4.2: Top five provinces of the blockboard industry

According to the latest data from the China Statistic Yearbookof Forestry (2015), Shandong province is the largest plywood
production base in China; in 2015, it produced 48.4 million m3,
accounting for 29 percent of the country’s total output. It isfollowed by Jiangsu, Guangxi, Anhui and Guangdong provinces,the combined production of which accounted for 76 percent of
the country’s total production (see Table 4.1 and Figure 4.3).
Figure 4.3: Top five provinces of plywood production, 2015

Owing to the relatively low manufacturing costs of blockboard
and the simplicity of producing and marketing, more than95 percent of the production industries are small enterprises
Table 4.1 Top five provinces of plywood production,2013-2015 (million m3)

Overview of China’s current plywood enterprises
Few accurate statistics are available on the actual number of
plywood mills in China. Most experts agree that there areabout 3 000 mills equipped with a plywood production line, andtens of thousands of veneer-peeling mills (Chen, 2013). These
enterprises can be divided into three size categories.
1.

2.

3.

Large enterprises: These are located in coastal cities inShanghai, Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces, most of themforeign-funded or shareholding enterprises established inrecent decades. Annual productivity is 50 000-200 000 m3.
Raw materials are mainly imported logs or veneer. Thesemills have advanced technology and represent the highest
level of quality in China. The average annual production
capacity of large enterprises is more than 30 000 m3.
Medium-sized enterprises: These are mainly found in
Zhejiang, Shandong and other inland provinces. Investment
is usually around several million CNY. Face veneer ismostly imported, and core veneer is produced domestically.
Quality is mediocre, and the average annual production
capacity is 10 000-30 000 m3.
Small enterprises: Most plywood products in China are madeby these enterprises. They are mostly situated in Jiangsu,

42  Biennial Review 2015-2016

Provinces

2013

2014

2015

2015 Percentage (%)

National

137.3

149.7

165.5

100

Shandong

44.1

46.3

48.4

29

Jiangsu

28

31.8

31.6

19

Guangxi

17.2

16.4

20.5

12

Anhui

10.1

12.8

14.9

  9

Guangdong

  2.5

  3.3

11.1

  7

Source: China Statistic Yearbook of Forestry, 2015.

Jiangsu is the largest blockboard production base in China, producing
3.4 million m3 (16 percent of the total national production) in 2015.
It is followed by Zhejiang, Hebei, Guangxi and Shangdong. The
blockboard production of these five provinces together accounted
for 62 percent of the national total (see Table 4.2 and Figure 4.4).
The plywood production data presented in this chapter may not correspond withITTO estimates presented in Appendix 1 of this report. Consultations were underway with the government of China regarding the data presented in this preliminary
study at the time of finalizing the Biennial Review. Any revisions or comments
on China’s tropical plywood production resulting from these consultations will be
posted in due course on www.itto.int
9

Figure 4.4: Top five provinces of blockboard production, 2015

gluing, assembly (layup) and compression into plywood
using thermo-compressing machines. The procedures include
four steps.
Log preparation: Logs are debarked and cut into designatedlengths according to the required sizes of plywood products
to get the best quality of veneer and maximize log volume
utilization. They are then treated with warm water to soften
the wood and increase its plasticity, hence its peeling ability
and veneer quality.

2.

Veneering: The wood sections are generally peeled with alathe to obtain veneers. More than 95 percent of veneer in
China is made by peeling and less than 5 percent by slicing.
All enterprises surveyed in this study used a lathe. The
wood sections need to be centred before being put into thelathe (to maximize the yield of the full-sized veneer). Afterthe peeling process the veneer is dried. In this study, most of
the plywood mills procure veneer from small producers innearby areas. These family workshop-style factories haveno equipment for drying wood; they dry them naturally.
Veneer usually needs to be dried to 8-12 percent mcd, after
which it is cut to predetermined sizes, and small pieces are
put together to form full-size sheets. Finally, they are further
repaired and processed, which includes seaming, joining,
and filling holes and splits. This part of the process isparticularly time-consuming, accounting for 35-40 percentof the total work hours.

3.

Gluing: This is a critical step whereby glue is applied to thesurface of the veneer to produce the required number of plies
and panel thickness. They are then thermo-compressed. For
normal plywood, the dosage of glue is about 80-90 kg/m3(liquid) for class I plywood, 90-100 kg/m3 (liquid) for class II
plywood and 30-35 kg/m3 (solid) for class III plywood.

4.

Finishing: This consists of trimming, sanding and quality
control, whereby size is checked for consistency, and theoverall quality and appearance are controlled according tonational standards.

Table 4.2 Top five provinces of blockboard production,2013-2015 (million m3)
Provinces

2013

2014

2015

2015 Percentage (%)

National

21.2

23.9

20.8

100

Jiangsu

3.2

3.7

3.4

16

Zhejiang

2.8

2.9

2.7

13

Hebei

2.1

2.5

2.4

12

Guangxi

2

2.7

2.3

11

Shangdong

1.4

2.6

2.1

10

Source: China Statistic Yearbook of Forestry, 2015.

In terms of combined production of plywood and blockboard,
Shandong is still the largest base. It is followed by Jiangsu, Guangxi,
Anhui and Hebei, the combined production of which accounted for
74 percent of the national total (see Table 4.3 and Figure 4.5).
Figure 4.5: Top five provinces of the total production of
plywood and blockboard, 2015

Most plywood mills follow these procedures (see Figure 4.6).
Figure 4.6: Production process
Cross-cut
log

Table 4.3 Top five provinces of the total production of
plywood and blockboard, 2013-2015 (million m3)
Provinces

2013

2014

2015

2015 Percentage (%)

National

158.4

173.6

186.3

100

Shandong

45.5

48.9

50.5

27

Jiangsu

31.2

35.5

35

19

Guangxi

19.2

19.1

22.8

12

Anhui

13.1

14.5

15.7

  8

Hebei

  7.2

11.6

13.5

  7

Source: China Statistic Yearbook of Forestry, 2015.

Processing proceduresa)Plywood

In China, dry heat is used to dry the peeled veneer to between
8 and 12 percent moisture content dry (mcd), followed by

Hot-pressing

Assembly

Cut edgeb)Centre onlathe chucks

Condition

Gumming

Grading

Peel veneer

Dry veneer

Splicing

Trimming

Storage

Blockboard

The production of blockboard consists of three main steps:
veneer making (which is the same procedure as for normal
plywood), core veneer making and gluing.
Coreboard production: The enterprises surveyed in this study
mainly used poplar and paulownia in north China and eucalypts
in the south. To maintain the stability of the panel, the coreboards
for the blockboard should be the same species or have similar
physical properties. The core is made by sawing uniform strips

Biennial Review 2015-2016  43

Chapter 41.

from the wood, applying glue to the surface and laminating them
together with a press.
Applying board: Glue is applied to each side of the coreboard,and veneer is applied to both sides of the blockboard panel. The
panels are then thermo-compressed to laminate the core andsurface veneer panels together.

Sources of raw materials for plywood production
The use of basswood, birch and Manchurian ash for plywood
production was stopped when China began to liberalize its
economy. From the 1980s to the early 1990s the importing of woodfor plywood production was considered a lucrative business andattracted many investors. Currently, wood produced from fastgrowing plantations is widely used in China’s plywood sector.
According to expert estimates, about 70 percent (50 percent from
poplar and 20 percent from eucalyptus) of the country’s plywood
production comes from plantations.
In terms of the species used for plywood production, domestically
produced wood comes primarily from poplars, eucalypts, Manchurianash, basswoods, Alniphyllum fortunei, paulownia, rubberwood,
Chinese cherry, sweet gum, maples, elms, oaks, birches, masson
pine, Yunnan pine, larches and spruces. Imported wood is mainly
from Eucalyptus saligna, mahogany and radiata pine.
Large broadleaved trees are used for the face veneer of plywood
and block wood, with the core veneer and the base board mostly
being poplar and eucalypts from fast growing plantations. The
face veneer for plywood is normally 0.1-0.6 mm thick. For astandard-sized plywood about 9 mm thick with a face veneerof 0.3mm thick, the face veneer, core veneer and the baseveneer account for approximated 3.3 percent, 93.3 percent and3.3 percent of the total volume of the plywood panel, respectively.

Trends in raw-material supply
The development of China’s plywood production can be divided
into three different eras of raw material sourcing.
•••

1949-1980: Domestically produced logs were theprincipal raw material. They were mainly largesized logs from natural Tilia, Fraxinus manchurica
and Betula forests in northeast China. Industrial
development was stagnant and production was lessthan 1 million m3.
1981-2000: Imported wood, mostly the Eucalyptus
saligna from Indonesia and Malaysia, was used as raw
material. High-quality, broadleaved hardwoods fromdomestic sources were in short supply in the early
1990s, so a large amount of plywood made of tropical
species was imported. Concurrently, imported wood
was also being used, and foreign investment in Chinese
plywood production started to build momentum.
2001-present: Poplar is used for core veneer, andimported wood is used only for face veneer. Imports
come mainly from Africa rather than Southeast Asia,
as was previously the case. The development ofChina’s plywood industry started to accelerate during
this period. Processing technologies and equipment
were gradually upgraded, and the quality of plywood
was improved. Moreover, production costs were low,meaning that plywood production not only met theneeds of the domestic market but was also exported
in large quantities owing to its price competitiveness.

44  Biennial Review 2015-2016

Results of the survey carried out among enterprises indicate thatthe supply of raw material is currently sufficient; some largersized plywood enterprises have established their own plantations
as raw material production bases to ensure that this is the case. A
few enterprises indicated that the supply of raw material was low– particularly of tropical wood – and that the price was rising.
Plywood is a resource-dependent sector, and with the rapid
increase in China’s capacity to produce plywood, it is expectedthat shortage of raw material could become one of the limiting
factors.

SupplyThe future supply of raw materials for China’s plywood industry
is likely to come from various sources:

Plantations
Before the implementation of the natural forest protection
programme in 1998, 80 percent of wood came from naturalforests. However, since then wood production from naturalforests has decreased sharply. In 2011 protection of natural forests
was further strengthened, and since April 2014 commercial
harvesting of natural forests in Heilongjiang province (a key
state-owned forest region) stopped, as these forests were set
aside for restoration. The supply of wood from China’s naturalforests is being replaced by plantation-sourced logs.
The State Forestry Administration (SFA) is concentrating on
creating more plantations. In 2012, it initiated a national plan
to develop a strategic wood reserve (2013-2020) through theestablishment of 18 plantation sites totalling 1.4 million ha
distributed across six major regions and 25 provinces by 2020.
Efforts will be made to grow plantations of desirable, largediameter species using state-of-the-art science and management.
When the strategic wood reserves reach the target maturity for
rotation, the domestic harvest of wood is expected to increase by
95 million m3 per year, which is expected to supply most of the
raw materials needed for plywood production.

Tropical wood for high quality plywood will continue tobe sourced from international market
At present, tropical wood produced in China is almost all fromplantations. They are generally small in diameter, limited tojust some species. The country has tried to establish production
bases for species of large-diameter tropical hardwood, but these
do not supply enough wood to meet demand. Raw material formaking high-quality plywood will continue to be sourced fromthe international market.

By establishing a sustainable supply of tropical wood forplywood production from overseas
Since 1989, in response to the policy of going overseas,some Chinese enterprises have implemented a series ofprogrammes to procure forest resources from countries suchas Brazil, and others in Southeast Asia and Africa. At present,
the government encourages enterprises to establish overseas
long-term sources of tropical wood. Some enterprises
have already established joint-venture plantations of teak,rosewood and other desirable tropical species in neighbouring
countries that have rich forest resources, for example Laos,
Myanmar and Thailand. Increasing investment from Chinese
plywood companies in tropical, precious trees will provide
a source of sustainable high-quality materials for plywood
production in China.

Survey of plywood industries

Table 4.4: P roduction of surveyed enterprises by province
Total
production (m3)

Averageproduction (m3)

Jiangsu

1,360,400

45,347

Zhejiang

342,485

6,227

Guangdong

321,800

11,919Shandong

315,355

9,010

Guangxi

306,200

7,290

Anhui

148,000

18,500Hebei

90,600

6,471

Henan

87,60012,514

Heilongjiang

87,5007,955

Overview
Since the inception of the project in June 2013, the project teamhas been in contact with the relevant agencies to conduct a survey
using a questionnaire drafted by the team from the Chinese
Academy of Forestry (CAF) and revised by experts from FAO
and ITTO. At the same time consultations have been made withdomestic experts, provincial statistics staff and representativesof the plywood companies to provide explanations and revisions
to the questionnaires.
Through coordination with the State Test Center for Wood-based
Panel, 282 questionnaires were completed in combination with
its test and research activities, and 26 were done through onsite investigation by the project team. A total of 308 completed
questionnaires were collected, and a preliminary analysis of the
responses is given below.

Distribution of participating companies
Of all 21 Chinese provinces, more than 60 percent of the companies
that participated in the survey were from Zhejiang, Guangxi,
Shandong, Jiangsu and Guangdong (see Figures 4.7 and 4.8).
Figure 4.7: Number of participating enterprises by province

Provinces

Hunan

79,70011,386

Shanghai

78,10015,620Hubei

71,100

8,888

Jilin

59,700

5,427

Yunan

56,1805,618

Neimenggu

50,1003,340

Liaoning

33,800

4,225

Gansu

25,00012,500

Tianjin

21,3005,325

Beijing

17,730

4,433

Fujian

8,000

4,000

Shanxi

6,900

2,300

Figure 4.9: N umber of investigated enterprises by level ofproduction

Chapter 4

Figure 4.8: P ercentage of participating enterprises indifferent provinces

Among the surveyed enterprises, 21 sold blockboard, with thegreatest volumes produced in Inner Mongolia, Shandong andZhejiang. The annual production of blockboard in different
provinces is shown in Figure 4.10.
Figure 4.10: Blockboard production by province (m3)

Production volume
Among the 308 plywood producers, Jiangsu province produced
the greatest volume, followed by Zhejiang, Guangdong,
Shandong, Guangxi and Anhui (see Table 4.4 and Figure 4.9). In
addition, product specialization has become increasingly popularin the plywood clusters in China. Only a few enterprises have acomplete processing chain from log to plywood.

Biennial Review 2015-2016  45

Raw materials
The questionnaire responses indicate to what extent companies
use various kinds of materials (Table 4.5). Among thosesurveyed, 14 companies used logs, and 163 and 147 used thecore veneer of plywood and veneer respectively. None usedsawlogs. The volume of each type of raw material used is shownin Figure 4.11.

Figure 4.12: Average volume of by-products and residues
during production of plywood, veneer andblockboard (m3)

Table 4.5 Raw materials used by producers
Raw materials

Numberof companies

Coniferous timber

10

3.3%

Non-coniferous timber, of
which is tropical timber

142

46.1%

27

8.8%

Mixed timber

152

49.4%

Percentage

Figure 4.11: Volume of materials used by manufacturers (m3)waste veneer, waste from trimming and other processing
residues. The average volume of by-products and processing
residues produced during the production of plywood, veneer
for sale and blockboard are shown in Figure 4.12. The main byproducts and processing residues from plywood production were
offcuts of veneer, sawdust and discarded veneer. The main byproducts and processing residues from veneer production werethe core of peeler log and offcut of veneer. The main by-products
and processing residues from veneer production were offcut ofveneer, sawdust and discarded veneer.

End uses of by-products and residues of processing
According to the results of the questionnaire, more than 65 percentof the by-products and residues were used for particleboard andfibreboard, about 20 percent for fuel and 15 percent for other purposes.
Only one company (Zhejiang Desheng Wood) was using
imported wood, 58 percent of which were tropical species. Allother enterprises were using domestically produced wood, andmost were using poplar and eucalypt as raw material. Only one(Puer Linda Wood) was using solely coniferous wood. Somemanufacturers were also using birch.

Size of the enterprises
The average number of employees in each mill was 161. Six
enterprises had more than 1 000, and the largest number of
employees was 2 000 (see Figure 4.13).
Figure 4.13: Number of staff employed in different enterprises

At the time of the survey, the participating enterprises were
unaware of the ownership and exact origin of the raw materials
and had no records. Therefore, such data were obtained
through consultation with experts and literature reviews. Poplar
wood came from Shandong, north Jiangsu, Henan and Hebei
provinces, mostly from owned forests and some from state forest
farms. Eucalypt wood came from Guangxi and Guangdong,
mainly from company forests, state forest farms and collectiveowned forests. Birch wood was partly from state-owned
forests in northeast China and partly from Russia. Chinese Fir(Cunninghamia lanceolata) was mainly from the collectively
owned forests in Fujian and Jiangxi provinces.
Among the surveyed enterprises, 14 had log-processing
businesses. The largest average diameter of logs for plywood
and veneer was 44.2 cm and the smallest was 14 cm. The longest
was 9.44 m on average and the shortest was 5.79 m. Thirteencompanies said the peeler core (residual part of the log after theveneer has been removed) had an average length and diameter of
1.95 m and 3.56 cm respectively.

By-products and residues of processing
The by-products of production and the residues of processing
were mainly log cores, bark, cull logs, sawdust, broken and46  Biennial Review 2015-2016

Staff salaries
The average staff salary was 2 337 CNY per month, varying from
1 200 yuan/month to 4 500 yuan/month, depending on the type ofwork. From interviews with employees, the salaries of technicalworkers at plywood factories were all above 3 000 yuan/month(see Figure 4.14). Moreover, these employees worked on average
9.89 hours per day. This is not consistent with the labour law of
the Peoples’ Republic of China, which stipulates eight hours as
the maximum length of a working day. The questionnaires also
indicated that employees worked an average of 320 days per year.

Figure 4.14: Average monthly salaries

Table 4.7 Wood conversion rate of poplar and eucalypt
veneerTreespeciesType

Volume of wood
raw materials used to
produce 1 m3
of veneer (m3)Conversion
rate

Temperate
hardwood

poplar

1.49

0.67

Tropicalhardwood

eucalypt

1.72

0.58

Average

Table 4.8 Wood conversion rate of poplar and eucalypt
blockboard

Price of materials purchased
The survey showed that the average purchasing price ofroundwood was 990 CNY per m3. The main tree species included
poplar, eucalypts and birch. The average purchasing price ofcoreboard used to produce blockboard was 992 CNY per m3. The
average purchasing price of veneer was 1 563 CNY per m3, madeof poplar and eucalypts (see Figure 4.15).
Figure 4.15: Average price of wood raw materials used inplywood mills (CNY/m3)

Of the questionnaire respondents, fourteen companies converted
logs to plywood. Tree species involved were mainly poplars andeucalyptus. The wood conversion rate of poplar and eucalypt
plywood products are shown in tables 4.6-4.8.
Plywood manufacturers use small amounts of other species
besides poplar and eucalypts. It is difficult to determine theconversion rate of other species of timber. In addition, given thatthe survey sample comprised just 14 companies, the results are
for reference only.
Table 4.6 Wood conversion rate of poplar and eucalypt
plywoodTreespecies

TropicalhardwoodTreespeciesConversion
rate

eucalypt

1.17

0.85

Other findings
For the questions that required a written reply, the responses are
summarized below.
•

During the past five years the prices of logs, core veneer
and face veneer have increased, putting profitability
pressure on the plywood producers.

•

Restrictions on export markets for plywood are
growing, with many enterprises exploring opportunities
in the domestic market.

•

Plywood for furniture and other higher value-added
products have greater profitability.

•

The market demand for high value-added andenvironmentally friendly plywood products has been
increasing during the past five years.

•

Enterprises currently have more contact withgovernment agencies including the local forestry
bureau, local industrial and commercial agencies,
taxation agencies and customs (only for export
enterprises), but less contact with statistical agencies.

Enterprises hoped to have face-to-face meetings with thestatistical agency staff to understand fully the meaning ofsome statistical indicators. Usually the statistical agency sent
statistical tables to the enterprises and required them to fill inand submit the tables within a given timeframe. Therefore,
the respondents requested better training for local statisticalagencies to improve the accuracy and consistency of statisticaldata.

End uses of plywood and its by-products

Volume of wood
raw materials used to
produce 1 m3of plywood (m3)Conversion
rate

Temperate
hardwood

poplar

1.5

0.67

Tropicalhardwood

eucalypt

1.48

0.68

1.48

0.68

AverageType

Volume of wood
raw materials used to
produce 1 m3of blockboard (m3)

End uses of plywood
In the 1980s about 70 percent of plywood was used infurniture; 15-20 percent in construction, doors and windows;
2-3 percent in vehicles and ships; and 7-13 percent for otherpurposes (including packaging). In the 1990s plywood
consumption patterns in China changed; for example, in
1995, 49.9 percent was used for furniture, 29.5 percent for

Biennial Review 2015-2016  47

Chapter 4

Wood conversion rate of China’s plywood products

Type

0.63

Table 4.9. Wood conversion rate of China’s plywood product in surveyed enterprises
Plywood

VeneerBlockboard(from veneer to plywood)(from log to veneer)(from sawnwood toblockboard)Enterprises

Provinces

Zhejiang Gangsheng Wood Co

Zhejiang

Puer Linda Wood Co

Yunnan1.25

Meiya Global Wood Co(Foshan city)

Guangdong

1.54

1.52

1.5

Xuzhou Huake Wood Co

Jiangsu

1.54

1.51

1.52

Average

Poplar

Eucalypt

Other

Average

Poplar

Eucalypt

Other

Average

Poplar

Eucalypt

Other

1.2
1.45

Xuzhou Lifeng Wood Co

Jiangsu

1.3

Xuzhou Fuer Wood company

Jiangsu

1.43

Hangzhou Fulilai Decoration

Zhejiang

Jiashan Dalin Wood Co

ZhejiangNanning Jiangtao Wood Co

Guangxi

1.45

1.42

1.46

1.5

1.52

1.54

1.17

1.2
1.78
1.52

1.49

1.83

Hefei Yusen Wood Co

Anhui

1.5

1.5

1.53

Xuwen Hengdong Plywood

Guangdong

1.54

1.53

1.5

Xuzhou Fushen Wood Co

Jiangsu

1.52

1.5

1.53

Nanjing Meishan Wood Co

Guangxi

1.5

Xuzhou Weilin Wood Co

Jiangsu

construction, 10 percent for packing, 4 percent for transport
and 5.6 percent for other purposes (Huang 2013). Entering
the twenty-first century, China’s rapid growth in construction,
increases in the furniture producing industry and otherdemands led to heightened use of plywood – particularly
overlaid plywood, which has become the current favourite ininterior decorating. This is made through overlaying a sheetof veneer on to the plywood. Usually the veneer is made of
hardwood with a high-quality grain, but the plywood is madeof poplar or eucalypts. Consumption patterns further changed
in 2012, according to the available information (Huang 2013;
see Figure 4.16).

1.65

1.54
1.35

1.09

Figure 4.17: End uses of different plywood products

Figure 4.16: End uses of plywood

Distribution channels of plywood and its
by-products in China
The flow of plywood
As mentioned previously, wooden furniture is the most common
use for plywood, followed by interior decoration panels. The survey
results indicate that there were four main buyers of panels andFigure 4.18: P ercentage of flows of different plywood
products in surveyed enterprises

The changes in end-uses of plywood can be attributed to thesignificant evolution of the composition of plywood products, inthe properties of plywood products and new areas of application
due to improved functions of plywood, e.g. flooring, decorating
and construction.
According to the results of the survey, the end uses of plywood,
veneer for export and blockboard were mainly furniture, flooringand internal panelling (see Figure 4.17).

48  Biennial Review 2015-2016

veneer: the local market for further processing; local markets forend use; and other provinces. Sales of plywood to other provinces
accounted for 60 percent, export for 18 percent, local markets forend use for 19 percent and local markets for further processing for
3 percent. Sales of veneers for export to other provinces accounted
for 73 percent of the total, and sales to local markets for end use
accounted for 21 percent. Sales of blockboard to other provinces
accounted for 89 percent and sales to local markets for end use
accounted for 10 percent (see Figure 4.18).

Buyers of by-products and residues
By-products and residues of the mills were mainly used for own
consumption and sold to local markets; little was sold to otherregions.

Future development trends
Generally, the plywood sector in China has the following
characteristics:
•

•

•

•

Low-cost labour. Although labour rates have been
facing upward pressure, costs are still advantageouscompared with other advanced countries.
Veneer is naturally dried using solar energy, so it
is difficult to get plywood dry enough for quality
lamination of panels without using a dryer.
High recovery rate. In some regions, such as Shandong,
the recovery from logs to plywood can be as high as
80 percent or more.
The plywood industry has become a driving force forenhanced plantation development.

Specifically, future developments in the sector will beconcentrated in four areas.
•••

Continual improvement in regulations of entry into
the plywood industry. In the future, regulationsof entry to the industry will be based on not only
on economies of scale but also on quality of the
products. It will provide support to high-end
enterprises through industry associations and quality
control agencies in the form of technical training,participation from science and technology agencies,
provision of financial assistance, and establishing acredit and a quality control system.
The effects of industrial clustering will become evenmore significant and regional economic advantage
more prominent.
Assistance to the development of leading enterprises,
which will integrate the small and medium-sizedenterprises through mergers and acquisitions;upgrading and improvement of equipment; export
management; improvement of overall product quality
and environmental friendliness.

Increased use of plywood. As the construction industry
grows in China, the demands for plywood for structuraluses will increase every year. Plywood for concrete
formation will also be developed. Moreover, modern
houses with wooden structures that are common in
many countries have grown in popularity in Shanghai,
Beijing, Nanjing and Suzhou.

Direction and suggestions for future studies
According to State Forestry Administration (SFA) 2015
statistics, the total production of wood-based panels that year was
286.8 million m3, of which plywood constituted 165.5 million m3
and blockboard 20.8 million m3 (see Table 4.10).
Table 4.10 P roduction of wood based panels in China,
2012-2015 (million m3)
2012

2013

2014

2015

Total

223.4

255.6

273.7

286.8

Plywood

109.8

137.3

149.7

165.5

Fibreboard

58

64

64.6

66.2

Particleboard

23.4

18.8

20.9

20.3

Other

32.1

35.5

38.5

34.8

Of which blockboard

18.7

21.2

23.9

20.8

Source: SFA, 2015.

China’s wood-based panel industry is still developing rapidly.
Improvement of the statistical data will assist policies
on wood-based panels. Thus, it is necessary to continue
improving the statistical data on wood-based panels. Basedon the experiences of the current survey, directions for futurestudies are proposed.

Suggestions for improvement
1) Capacity-building projects for statistics staff
During the survey, it became apparent that the statistics staff oflocal forestry agencies did not always have the required training
and technical skills, which often led to incomplete data of poor
quality. Therefore, targeted training and technical exchanges
for the statistics staff is recommended, including access to data
standards, statistical analysis and data checking.

2) In-depth analysis of the plywood industrial chain
China has a complex plywood business chain that involves
foresters, wood dealers, transporters, producers, wholesalers,
retailers and secondary manufacturers. As this makes it difficult
to accurately access complete and accurate data, on-site
investigations focusing on the entire industry chain and analysing
critical check points should be conducted in the cluster regions.

3) Studies on national and international statisticalstandards for forest products
In China, the statistical classification of some forest products is
not harmonized across agencies. In the case of wood flooring,the classification system of the State Statistics Bureau is too
ambiguous, is not aligned with the international system andposes difficulty in getting statistical data from enterprises.
Adjustment and improvement is needed in the current system toimprove the accuracy of statistics and provide consistency withinternational statistics.

Biennial Review 2015-2016  49

Chapter 4

The plywood industry is developing rapidly in China – the sector
has grown by an average of more than 20 percent a year since2008. However, with rapid development the plywood sector
also faces many challenges. For example, it is undeniable that
China’s plywood sector faces some serious problems in termsof quality and low added-value. The future development of thesector requires that the government, science and technology
agencies, and industrial associations strengthen the subsectors
within the industry clusters through guidance and planning.

•4) Continued case studies on wood-floor production
It was found during the survey that neither the State Statistics
Bureau nor the SFA had any production indicators for intermediate
products for flooring products in the statistical classification.
These refer to the wooden base used for producing laminatedflooring. Intermediate products for flooring and finished flooringproducts are generally not produced by the same enterprise; theformer are produced by separate enterprises upstream. Because
there were no statistical indicators for semi-finished flooringproducts (flooring billets), the producers of the latter counted the
production as the finished wood flooring product, which resulted
in the duplication of calculation data on semi-finished flooring.
This problem applies to solid wood flooring and composite
wood flooring. For this reason, it is suggested that a case study
on statistics of wood floors be carried out to assess the extent andweights of repeated statistical data.

50  Biennial Review 2015-2016

5) Survey a sample of enterprises that are below
the designated scale
The survey found that statistical capacity was weak and business
managers lacked awareness in this area. The result was that no
statistical data were available for enterprises below the designatedscale (enterprises were not included in the statistics if production was
below the cut-off point), which led to missing data on some forest
products. Forestry agencies had no direct administrative relationshipwith private wood products businesses, and in some cases enterprises
failed to cooperate. Most plywood enterprises in China are below
the designated scale for reporting; therefore, it is suggested that a
stratified sampling be carried out on these enterprises to obtain data
for the revision of the current statistical data.

6) Carry out studies on trade flows of plywood
Knowledge on the trade flows of the plywood industry is important
to improve the statistics and provide policy recommendations.
Studies could be carried out covering sources of logs, for example
Africa, New Zealand, North America and the Russian Federation.