Market disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic have significantly affected the wood processing industry in Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose exports in the first half of the year decreased by about 13% compared to the same period last year.
Business in a number of companies, according to the Foreign Trade Chamber of BiH (STK BiH), was difficult, and exports of products (furniture, sawn timber and elements, parquet and flooring, boards and veneer) were declining in the first six months of this year, except construction joinery and prefabricated wooden houses.
“Nevertheless, the fact that in the sixth month there was an increase in exports by 13.2% compared to the same month last year is encouraging,” it is stated in the analysis of the STK BiH.
When it comes to wood products and the most important markets, in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year there was a decline in exports to Germany 4.9%, Italy 44.7, Croatia 10.1, while exports increased to Poland 13 , 2%, Switzerland 12.1, Czech Republic 16.4 … A decrease was also recorded in the export of parquet and other profiled wood (44.2%), forestry products (28.1), wood furniture (14.1), boards and veneer (16.8), sawn timber and elements (6 ,4), and an increase in exports of construction joinery (10.3) and prefabricated wooden houses (8.1).
In the first six months of this year, the total imports of the wood sector were lower by 24.6% than in the same period in 2019.
“Although the opening of the EU market started the export, producers in BiH are in great uncertainty how they will be exported in the next period and whether there will be enough orders,” the STK BiH states.
