Despite the decline in exports, the BiH wood industry achieved a surplus of 1,074,137,707 BAM last year, and the export-import coverage was 295 percent.
The value of wood industry exports last year was 1,623,960,717 BAM, which is 8.5 percent less than the previous year, while the value of imports was 549,823,010 BAM, which is 6.3 percent less.
The analysis of the Foreign Trade Chamber of BiH states that last year, compared to 2023, there was a clear decline in exports of all groups, except for unprocessed wood, which is increasing both in quantity (51 percent) and value (43 percent), and the reason for this is the lifting of the suspension of exports of forest wood assortments from BiH.
Other forestry products – furniture, prefabricated houses, construction joinery, parquet flooring – recorded a decline in exports. Furniture accounted for 42.7 percent of total exports and amounted to 692,771,272 BAM, which is 8.5 percent less than in 2023, and there was an evident decline in exports of upholstered chairs, by 23.6 percent.
As for imports, in 2024, almost all product groups experienced a decline, except for prefabricated houses, construction joinery and wooden furniture.
Last year, 93.7 percent of total wood industry exports were realized in 20 leading markets, and Germany, Croatia, Serbia and Italy stand out among the most important export partners.
Although the leading market, a decrease in exports to Germany was recorded in the value of 61 million BAM, or 15.1 percent, and a decrease was also recorded in Italy (17.8 million or 10.6 percent), the Netherlands (17.6 million BAM or 18.5 percent) and Slovenia (16.3 million BAM or 15.7 percent).
In the past year, compared to the previous year, exports to China increased by 9.5 million BAM or 41.8 percent, and the largest export was unprocessed wood. Also, exports to the Polish market increased by 2.8 million BAM, and the largest increase was recorded in furniture exports.
