European Softwood Lumber Exporters Deal with COVID-19 Pandemic in Asia and Now Europe

According to China Customs data, softwood lumber prices in China fell 13.5% to $161 per cubic meter in January and February of 2020. Year-over-year Chinese imports of softwood lumber were down 7.9% in the first two months of the year, to 3.33 million m3. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic first started to show up in late January and early February. At that time companies in both China and South Korea began asking that recently placed order shipments be postponed. Several European exporters then started to ship materials to Egypt instead of China. Since the start of April, China has started to ramp up their production capabilities and they are once again accepting goods. At the same time manufacturing in Europe has started to slow due to the pandemic. It is being reported that the European lumber markets are almost halved in current value.