Future scenarios for wood supply and demand in Russia

The partial equilibrium global forest sector model EFI-GTM was applied to assess the impact of various factors on the demand for wood in Russia and the European part of Russia. The model uses recursive price-endogenous non-linear programming, covers 21 forest industry products and 4 timber assortments, and deals with 31 European regions and 30 regions for the rest of the world. The following factors are analyzed: higher economic growth worldwide, low investment risk, export tariffs on wood and wood products, and restriction on wood supply outside of Russia. Restrictions on wood supply in Europe and the low investment risk are the most important factors increasing wood demand. The high roundwood export tariff is the most important factor reducing future wood demand in Russia relative to the base scenario development. Policy related changes at the national and international level would have a major impact on the forest sector development and wood demand within the European part of Russia; they will also impact the wood and wood products trade. Consequently, a reallocation of regional wood and wood products production will occur.