The real significance of these numbers is the effect on U.S. jobs. These are higher paying jobs than the manufacturing average and are most often located in rural communities that are heavily dependent on the forest products industry. Future growth opportunities for our products are highest in foreign markets where demand is expected to grow more rapidly than in the more mature markets in the U.S. and Europe. However, if we are unable to secure a market position in Asian and Latin American countries in the near future because of prohibitive market access barriers, those markets will be locked up by emerging competitors and our natural competitive advantage in this sector will have been sacrificed to unequal terms of trade set by governments. It is for this reason that we have been so insistent on accelerating and expanding the reciprocal tariff elimination agreement from the Uruguay Round and why we are so determined to see a global agreement reached at the Seattle Ministerial.
Immediate action is essential to the future success and growth of the U.S. forest products industry.
Today, that competitive edge in the forest products sector is eroding as a consequence of public policy impacts on our domestic industry and because of the rapid expansion of foreign competitors, often with the active support of their governments. During the 1980s and early 1990s, our industry made substantial capital investments to modernize and upgrade our equipment and operations to ensure that we would be able to compete on a global scale. In fact, in terms of net value of plant and equipment per dollar of sales, the paper industry is more than twice as capital intensive as the all-manufacturing average. However, also during that time, our relative cost position changed, in part due to public policy actions. The 75 percent reduction in timber from public lands has resulted in increased fiber costs, which make up 30-70 percent of our production costs.