Comparison of timber trade patterns between Japan and Korea

The difference of the wood consuming patterns between Japan and Korea has caused the different trends in wood import. In the case of Japan, the volume of logs imported has been markedly reduced after 1980 because of the environmental problems, and then the volume of lumbers has been increasingly imported to replace the import reduction of the logs. Also, high added-value processing products have been rapidly increased with increases of the imported lumbers as affected by changes in the demand of wooden residence houses built with high quality of earthquake resistant wooden materials. However, in Korea, lower grade lumber and coniferous logs in low-price are needed instead of high quality wooden materials and lumbers because temporary wooden materials that does not need to be durability and high quality are mostly demanded. Therefore, amount of the logs imported in Korea was not greatly changed as comparing with that in Japan. Coniferous logs in lower-grade and lower-price were imported from USA in the 1980s, but then after the 1990s, the logs have been imported from Radiata pine in New Zealand. Although importing the lumber is in trend to be increased, but it is still low level. The portion of lumbers is still in 50% of total lumbers including the logs and the lumber, imported in Japan, while it is in only 10% of the total in Korea. Thus, the logs imported are still in important portions of domestic wood processing fields in Korea.