It is not easy to procure statistics and information linking species to price. Conversion factors for roundwood to plywood, sawnwood, etc., are also necessary. Economic reviews of world or local situations. Trade and investment information from newspapers and professional magazines. For example, trends of building activity in certain countries and, in particular, of wood-using industries, such as furniture production.
Government rules on exports and imports.
Shipping possibilities and rates. Specific information that can be gathered from personal contacts. Having gathered information, the importer bent on selling his timber must analyse it. The point of all that has been said is that the men in charge of marketing timber need to have, in addition to good business sense, a broad approach toward placing timber and wood products on the market, a grasp of the technology of wood-based industries, the ability to gather and analyse information of various kinds which influences the market in different ways, and, most of all, a creative and not a static conception of the work.