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B.C. logs now can enter China all year round

B.C. logs now can enter China all year round

Vancouver: The Chinese and Canadian governments have reached a trade agreement that opens new doors into China's growing wood products market for B.C. logs.
As of July 1, B.C. logs can be shipped year-round into China through two ports, Putian in the province of Fujian and Taicang near Shanghai, without being treated for pests, forest industry consultant Brian Zak said Thursday.
Access to more ports on a year-round basis is expected to boost log exports to China, particularly from B.C.'s northwest forests, he said.
Zak is the forestry sector representative for pest control issues in the log and lumber trade. He said the Canadian Food Inspection Agency notified him of the changes last week.
Until now, China would only accept untreated B.C. logs during the winter months and they all had to go through Putian, where they are fumigated in massive tarp-covered bunkers.
China has become the world's largest importer of logs, consuming 28 billion cubic metres of them in 2009; so far this year, imports are up 13 per cent. B.C. exports account for only a tiny fraction of that amount, 387,000 cubic metres, all low-grade wood for which there is virtually no market in North America. The opening up of the Chinese market is expected to spark new logging activity in the province's economically hard-hit northwest coast, where much of the forest consists of lower-grade hemlock.
"The new agreement to open Taicang Port is good for all companies selling into China," said Wayne Drury, president of Coast Tsimshian Resources, the largest logging company in the Prince Rupert-Terrace corridor. "We have very few opportunities to sell into a local market. There are no sawmills operating in the northwest and the pulp mill closed for good," he said in an e-mail to the Vancouver Sun.  [09/07/10]