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| Home » EMEA » Russia
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| Sustainable forests will manage environmental needs and economic demand |
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Russia has an estimated eight hundred million hectares of forest, which make up over a fifth of global timber reserves. Despite having more forest than any other nation, timber production has remained proportionately low. With increasing demand both domestically and globally, the current industry requirements are to develop areas of sustainable forest, so the economic demands can be managed and value-added processing increased, whilst at the same time meeting important environmental needs by protecting the vast areas of undisturbed forest.
At present, one third of Russia’s timber is exported, although domestic consumption has also been rising recently by an average of about 3%. Timber products have been identified as critical for Russia’s future growth, and development of domestic downstream business is being encouraged through export tariffs on logs, which have been increased from 20% to 80% effective January 2009.
Increasingly, foreign companies are moving into Russia to take advantage of the abundant wood resources and to access the fast-growing domestic market. Japan is one of the largest wood importers in the world and is currently the biggest importer of Russian timber. In addition, Japanese companies have been known to produce high-quality wood-processing equipment. We expect there will be more Japanese–Russian joint-ventures in timber industry.
In our estimation it is possible to use JBIC/NEXI as well as multi-ECA financing structures for wood processing and timber-related transactions.
SMBC group has a very close relationship with many ECAs and is looking forward to possible cooperation within the industry.
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