Russia was the main sawn softwood supplier to China in 2016 and imports from Russia surged 45% to 10.79 million cubic metres, accounting for 61% of total softwood sawnwood imports, as ITTO reported.
However, the second ranked supplier of sawn softwood was Canada but imports declined 15% to 3.87 million cubic metres.
The decline in average prices for imported sawn softwood from Canada (-16%) was larger than that from Russia (-8%).
