Mar 15, 2006. /Lesprom Network/. The Estonian timber industry depends more and more on Russian raw material, with the share of imported round timber increasing to 50% in the Estonian timber industry last year, the business daily Aripaev reported. The Estonian Forest Industries Association (EMTL) said Estonian sawmills last year imported 1.9 million cubic meters of unprocessed round timber, mainly from Russia. Such an amount of round timber makes it possible to produce slightly less than one million cubic meters of sawn timber, equal with the output of the five biggest Estonian sawmills this year. Considering that the Estonian sawmill industry produced two million cubic meters of sawn timber last year, it is clear that one in two raw round timbers was imported last year, the paper poined out. Two years before imported round timber accounted for about 25 percent of the raw material of the Estonian sawmill industry. EMTL managing director Andres Talijarv said that the trend showing growth in the import of unprocessed round timber would continue also this year. "The sawmills are not going to cut back their volume of output and as less is being felled in Estonia, they are obliged to look for raw material from across the border," Talijarv said. The estimated total amount of felling was 7 million cubic meters in Estonia last year. Talijarv said the volume of felling in Estonia had fallen for various reasons - the living standard of private forest owners had improved and they no longer had any immediate need to sell timber, there was overbidding on the pulp timber market as a result of last year's storm in Sweden and the prices of pulp timber had fallen fell, while bureaucratic obstacles were complicating felling. "Very soon there will not be enough fellers in Estonia," Talijarv said. "As there is a shortage of work at home and the earning from felling are lower in Estonia than in the neighboring countries, felling companies are increasingly looking for application to their equipment and people in Russia, Sweden and elsewhere."