Wood-processing industries face log supply shortage

Wood-processing industries face log supply shortage

JAKARTA (JP): Wood-processing industries will face a log
supply shortage of at least 14.5 million cubic meters per year
over the next five years due to forest fires, a forestry official
said yesterday.

Director General of Forest Utilization Titus Sarijanto said
the fires, which mainly affected log producers in Kalimantan and
Sumatra last year and over the past few months, would
significantly decrease the country's log production.

Titus said the local wood-processing industries would need
about 40.7 million cubic meters per year while the supply of logs
would only reach 26.17 million cubic meters.

"Log supplies are only sufficient to fulfill about 65 percent
of the wood-processing industries' production capacity," he said
during a speech at a seminar on improving the management of the
plywood industry.

Titus said the national demand for logs would be about 40.70
million cubic meters in the 1998/1999 fiscal year, consisting of
26.57 million cubic meters for the sawmill industry and 14.12
million cubic meters for the plywood industry.

The amount excludes local demand from the pulp industry.

He said demand in the 1998/1999 fiscal year, which began
today, would come from 1,700 sawmill companies with an annual
production capacity of 13.28 million cubic meters and 103 plywood
companies with an annual production capacity of 7.06 million
cubic meters.

Titus said the supply of logs in the Sixth Five-Year
Development Plan would reach 30 million cubic meters per year.

He said many forest concessionaires would reduce their annual
timber cutting plan over the next five years due to the recent
forest fires which have destroyed their trees and a decline in
demand for wood and wood-related products in the world market
since the middle of last year, he said.

The reduction in the timber plan is also due to the ministry's
commitment to reduce the logging of the country's natural
forests.

In the past five years, about 30 percent of Indonesia's supply
of logs has come from the country's natural forests. The
remainder has come from timber estates and clearing forests for
plantations and the government's resettlement programs.

Titus said that to anticipate the decline in log production
from natural forests, the ministry has encouraged the development
of industrial timber estates.

He said more than two million hectares of timber estates have
been developed since 1993. (gis)