The Status of Wood Products Supply and Demand in Ethiopia: A Review

Abstract

This review paper focused on the Ethiopian wood products demand and supply situation in the current and future time period. Fuel wood and industrial round wood products were considered in this review paper. The reviewed paper showed that the wood demand in Ethiopia growing fast due to increasing of purchasing power, economic growth, middle class, urbanization and  construction boom. In 2015, the fuel wood demand estimated about 120.4 million m³ RWE and industrial wood estimated approximately 8.4 million m³ RWE. To meet the needs of the growing demand, a supply of 4.4 million cubic meters of industrial wood will need to close the gaps by the year 2033. Demand and supply gap of wood products showed high disparity and grow from time to time. The round wood gap estimated 1.8 million m³ in 2013 and 4.4 million m³ gap of supply by the year 2033. The total volume of wood products demand estimated 1.2 million m3 RWE in 2015 and 13.9 m³ RWE by the year 2040. In the past years most of wood product supplied from woodlot and natural forest by logging while now it decreases and substitute by import products. In 2015, the country imported 3.006 million m³ RWE of different industrial wood products. The imported products worth nearly USD 182.53 million and the domestic production was estimated about 5.43 million m³ in 2015. The low level of industrial wood supply from domestic production is compensated by a large volume of imports. Between the years 2000-2013, the country has been imported 170,721.3 tons and estimate worth of 159 million USD and the import bill will reach 3 billion USD by the year 2035. The country also imported an average 65,680m³/year of different industrial wood products between the years 2007-2015. The main imported wood products were sawn wood, plywood and furniture. Ethiopia export small quantity of wood products. The trade balance between import and export showed that a negative trade balance between the years 2007-2015.  The total estimated amount of import was 120,000m RWE and export about 35,000m³ RWE. To narrow down demand-supply discrepancy and substitution of import volume, encouragement of investment is a crucial solution in forestry.

Keywords: Demand, Export, Import, Supply, Trade balance, Wood product

DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-1-03

Publication date: January 31^st 2021