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)