Sep 28, 2005. /Lesprom Network/. Canadian lumber giant Canfor Corp. is hoping to benefit from recent efforts to persuade China to use wood instead of concrete to repair the failing rooftops on thousands of apartment buildings in Beijing and other major cities. Because of the depletion of its forests, the Chinese government turned to concrete construction methods in the 1950s, an era when thousands of apartment buildings were built to house the population in large metropolitan areas. But now that the rooftops on many of those buildings are in need of repair, China is being asked to turn to wood as a cheap and energy-efficient alternative to concrete. “This is a market that is rapidly opening up,” said Mike Hogan, the Shanghai-based general manager of Forestry Innovation Investments Ltd., a British Columbia government agency promoting the use of wood construction in China. He will be joined in Shanghai next month by Canfor chief executive officer Jim Shepherd, who will tour major Chinese cities as a prelude to laying out aggressive targets as the company begins the process of establishing a presence in China. “I view the Chinese market as a tremendous opportunity for us,” Mr. Shepherd said in an interview. “What we are trying to do is define it and implement actions to take advantage of it.” Convincing the Chinese to use wood instead of brick and concrete for roof construction is part of Canfor's strategy to reduce its dependence on the United States market, which remains the destination for 75% of its lumber shipments. By comparison, only about 1% of the company's lumber output goes to China. But establishing a presence in a country where North American-style wood frame homes are considered a fire hazard is widely viewed as a tremendous challenge for Canfor and the entire Canadian forest industry. “The key problem is the lack of familiarity with the product,” Mr. Hogan said. In order to meet that challenge, Canadian agencies like Forestry Innovation Investments are working with various levels of government in China to establish codes and standards for wood construction. Mr. Hogan said the effort to replace aging rooftops on the country's apartment buildings is a “huge opportunity” for the lumber industry, in part because it is impractical to use concrete as a replacement due to weight issues. By using lumber, developers can quickly recover the costs of installing a roof made from wooden trusses by adding an extra storey at the top of any apartment, he said. The opportunities presented by the redevelopment of aging apartments is expected to attract much interest, but Mr. Shepherd is hoping to stake out a position by showing that Canfor can be a reliable supplier of high-quality wood for competitive prices. In order to feed the Asian market, Canfor is streamlining its lumber supply chain by consolidating several lumber reload centres in the Vancouver area — where the product is loaded for shipment — into one large facility in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond. The centre is geared to service customers in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Canfor is a Canadian integrated forest products company based in British Columbia. The company has extensive woodlands operations and manufacturing facilities in BC, Alberta and Quebec, and a lumber remanufacturing plant in Washington State. Canfor is a major producer and supplier of lumber, bleached kraft pulp, specialty kraft paper, plywood, and OSB for markets around the world.