The drop in domestic consumption drove Brazil's planted trees industry to seek out the foreign market to flow production and maintain growth for the year, as the Brazilian Tree Industry (Ibá) said in the press release received by Lesprom Network.
Comparing August 2016 year-to-date with the same period in 2015, the pulp exports volume passed the 8.4 million tons (+13.6%) mark, the wood panels achieved the mark of 644 thousand cubic meters (+65.6%) and paper exceed the 1.4 million tons (+5%) mark.
The positive outlook for exports contributed to the pulp segment in order to maintain its year-to-date growth at 12.254 tons produced (+7.7%) and paper sustained its performance in the same period of 2015 at 6.897 tons.
In the pulp market, China contributed the most to grow export revenues up to August, with approximately $1.35 billion (+19%) and 37% market share.
For the wood panels segment, the American continent is still the most appealing. Latin America accounts for a 53.5% share, i.e. $83 million and North America at 25.2% share and $39 million.
The paper segment is also still focusing on foreign sales to Latin America with a 58% share of exports, at $725 million, followed by Europe, at a share of 12.2% equal to $153 million and North America at 10.1% in third place with $126 million.
The Brazilian Tree Industry increased its share of Brazilian exports, going from 3.9% August 2015 year-to-date to 4.1% August 2016 year-to-date, achieving a positive balance of $4.4 billion (+6.7%) Pulp positively contributed to the balance with $3.4 billion (+3.5%), paper with $769 million (+19.4%) and wood panels with $152 million (+25.6%).
From January through August 2016, domestic wood panel sales achieved 4.19 million cubic meters (4.4%) and for the paper segment, domestic sales totaled 3.55 million tons (-0.4%).