Analysis of the domestic roundwood supply, wood import and wood consumption in Japan between 1960 und 1995
1999
Haberbosch, S. | Koike, M.
This paper deals with the causes of the declining domestic roundwood supply and the increasing volume of wood import between 1960 and 1995 in Japan. The strongest decrease in domestic roundwood supply could be determined between 1960 and 1973, which can be traced to the substitution of fuelwood and charcoal by oil (so-called energy revolution), to the decreasing volume of coniferous saw logs and to the decreasing volume of coniferous pulpwood. The analysis showed that the decreasing coniferous saw log production most obviously based on too low natural ressources, whereas the domestic coniferous pulpwood was mainly substituted by imported hardwood pulpwood and chips, because of too high production costs in Japan. In the same period, the wood imports strongly increased and dominated the Japanese wood market since 1970 up to now. This fact can be traced to increasing saw log imports, which were rendered possible on the one hand by the strong economic growth of Japan and on the other hand by the introduction of free trade in 1961, by which most of the tariff and non-tariff trade barriers were abolished. Between 1973 and 1995, the domestic hardwood saw log production and pulpwood production decreased, whereas the domesticconiferous saw log production stabilized. Since 1985 strongly increasing plywood and chips imports explain the decreasing domestic pulpwood production. Since 1980 the domestic coniferous saw log prices are declining because of structural changes of the Japanese house building market, leading to a declining use of domestic coniferous saw logs. The high forest management costs, mainly resulting on the one hand from strongly increasing forest workers wages during the last decades, and on the other hand from low timber prices, let expect also in future a further slowly declining domestic roundwood supply, whereas the wood import, mainly of semifinished- and finished forest products, can be expected to increase slowly.
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