12 August 2026
An analysis of Australia’s solid wood production and imports from the mid-1990s to the early 2020s has revealed declining sovereign capacity and rapidly rising imports that have been primarily (> 80%) sourced from nations with elevated-risk ILAT profiles.
Australia’s import dependency has increased by 46% since the mid-1990s. China’s share of Australia’s solid wood imports increased from 2% (mean 1996-97 to 2000-01) to 30% (mean 2018-19 to 2022-23) during the study period.
Australia’s total trade deficit in forest and wood products is now over $7 billion. This is considerably higher than the trade deficit reported by ABARES (2024b) of $4.1 billion because their summary excludes wooden furniture imports, and some miscellaneous ‘other’ wood imports.
This study found that Australia’s solid wood imports are 5.6 times more valuable per cubic metre than Australian solid wood exports. This reflects a disparity in value adding, with Australia importing substantial quantities of high-value wood furniture and builders’ carpentry, compared to exports that have been dominated by unprocessed logs.
Making it easier to produce timber within Australia by improving resource security and support for forest growers and managers would reduce Australia’s demand for solid wood products from elevated-risk countries, it would also improve Australia’s contribution to global efforts to mitigate the climate and extinction crises.
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