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In 2004, the New Zealand forest industry generated more than NZ$3.3 billion in export earnings. That’s almost 100 times more than the wine industry and is ahead of every other sector except dairy products and meat.
In the same year, 21 million m3 of roundwood was harvested from plantation forests and 5.1 million m3 of that was exported as logs. That means 15.9 million m3 (or 75.7%) of the total harvest was further processed in New Zealand into sawn timber, pulp and paper, panel products, furniture components and dozens of other products before being either consumed domestically or exported.
The industry’s future looks very bright, but huge amounts of investment capital are required to finance new processing and develop export markets. That will, in turn, require a positive political, economic and regulatory environment within New Zealand and new levels of co-operation between the key industry players and associations. |