Treecraft Newsletter - July 2023

Plywood News:?

10th July, 2023?

Dear Treecraft clients and partners,?

We are all aware that we experienced an abnormal post-Covid boom in our field. However, now, we are being faced with a much calmer market due to high inflation and interest rates directly impacting the construction industry and DIY market in Western and Northern Europe. The consequences are visible throughout the production units in China too: factories that usually tap into the domestic market when exports slow down, are seeing that a weak local Chinese real estate market cannot purchase an adequate volume to keep the mills running. Estimations are that exports are down 20 to 30%. Luckily, thanks to a more beneficial sea freight and EUR – CNY exchange, it is a very good time to offset expensive stock in Europe with cheaper newly-produced construction panels. But this is not for the faint hearted and requires some guts!?

The slower market situation resulted in cheaper raw materials in Q1 2023, which we believe have reached their bottom prices. The only change in Q2 we noticed was that local transportation cost from factory to exporting port decreased.?

Treecraft is happy to be helping plenty of importers and DIY clients in West and North Europe by supplying them wood-based panels manufactured in China. While doing so, we take due diligence at heart, whether it’s CE, FSC certification or source tracing of our wooden products. An article in the Belgian newspaper De Tijd/L’echo (https://www.tijd.be/politiek-economie/belgie/algemeen/vlaanderen-vraagt-belgie-meer-controles-op-illegale-houtstromen/10456874.html) proclaiming that the Belgian authorities are not controlling strictly enough the inflow of tropical wood into Belgium, which consequently has led to more tightened controls in customs for the import of wooden products. The only major repercussion for Treecraft is that nowadays it can take easily 3 weeks until clearance is done, which has led to some frustration from all parties involved. Please do keep these longer declaration time in mind.?

Apart from that,?Our team is on daily basis working on offering compliant products and Treecraft wishes to keep offering you the highest level of expertise in these matters. Although our volume of Commercial Plywood is for the greater majority with EV (Engineered Veneer / Reconstituted Veneer), we do have some clients still preferring Sapelli face and back veneers. We have seen that Sapelli wood has been added to the species listed in CITES which impacted the way of duty declaration earlier on this year. Treecraft is also actively studying the impact of the new EUDR regulations that will become effective very soon so we make sure we comply with the always-tightening legal structure we offer our products.?

Also, we have noticed in the past couple of months that imports into our main hub Antwerp have become more complicated as customs have implemented more stringent controls over all wooden panel products coming into Europe, something we in general applaud. The only impact we see for our final clients is that customs declaration takes up more time than it did before. Please keep a buffer period of 2-3 weeks for your goods to be finished declaration!??

Our Eucalyptus and Poplar/Euca Class 2 and 3 glue products have proved to be a great alternative to many Birch replacement-seeking importers around Europe. We continue to help out these clients with our solutions as an Eucalyptus Flooring Base product called FloorPly and a Eucalyptus Platform product suitable for HPL gluing and veneering called Supreme Hardwood.?

We also want to put our Primed Panels back into the spotlight: this plywood comes with a Primed surface that allows immediate painting for your end user. These panels are coated right in the heart of Europe, using a UV-cured base coat in combination with an eco-friendly water-based topcoat. This product allows you to gain access to added-value products that go beyond?the ordinary.

We also want to welcome Jan and Hannie to our team, who will take care of business development outside of the Benelux area and accounting respectively. The arrival of Jan to the team makes leeway to diversify the portfolio of products. Thanks to the extensive sourcing experience of David in China for his door distribution company Solid International based in Bruges, Treecraft is now offering to our clients outside of Belgium also more door-related products, including door-size plywood and even mouldings such as architraves and skirtings. Don’t hesitate to contact us for enquiries, the moulding products Solid International exports since many years already to Europe.??

With a more diverse product offering and a Treecraft representative in Europe, we are confident we are able to keep up to the promise of offering good quality at interesting prices. We are proud to be a team of engaging professionals and we want to portray that to the outer world as well, our new Treecraft outfits have been well received by the team!?

For those about to go on summer holiday, wish you a good one! David, Jan, Yvonne, Susie, Hannie, Laowang and Wang Long?