This week (June 2025) the provisional anti-dumping duty rates on hardwood plywood from China, set by the European Commission in May, came into force, covering birch plywood products among others. They will apply for the remainder of the investigation, until November this year.
The provisional anti-dumping duty — 25.1% for the Chinese company “Pizhou Jiangshan Wood Co., Ltd.” and 62.4% for all other Chinese companies — reflects the substantial volumes of dumping and the scale of the harm it has caused. The proposed tariffs are justified, because once they are applied the prices of plywood made in China will come close to the current cost and price level of EU producers. This degree of protection will allow our producers to keep a level playing field, while creating secure and predictable supply conditions.
The investigation referred to above was opened in October 2024 in response to complaints from producers in several EU countries about imports of Chinese hardwood plywood. In its study, the organisation “Greenwood Consortium” uncovered significant dumping, reaching as much as 144.3% and 192.7%, which is having a negative impact on European producers.
Illegal and unfair trade in plywood has long been fuelling both economic and political risks in the EU. Repeated signs of sanctions circumvention have come to light of late — Russian or Belarusian birch plywood reaching the EU via third countries such as Egypt, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Turkey and even China.
AS “Latvijas Finieris” has for several years now worked actively with international and national institutions to improve market transparency and curb the movement of illegal products. In cooperation with the European Commission, the European Panel Federation and the responsible Latvian authorities, we regularly analyse market data and information on the origin of timber. Thanks to activities geared towards shared goals and results, significant progress was made in 2024 — imports of illegal plywood into Latvia fell 30-fold compared with the previous year. It is important to acknowledge the solidarity and good practice shown by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Customs Board of the State Revenue Service, the State Forest Service and other public sector institutions. Even so, the problem persists in other EU countries, where such timber products are imported and then forwarded on to other EU member states.
As Europe's leader in birch plywood production, we fully support stronger trade defence mechanisms based on fair competition and sustainable forestry. The Commission's provisional decision confirms that Chinese producers are actively engaged in dumping, which not only threatens the competitiveness of EU producers but also creates risks for consumers, including illegal timber products reaching the market.
We welcome the European Commission's initiative, while calling for the utmost vigilance to be maintained. We are already seeing the first signs of attempts to get around the anti-dumping measures: small but economically unjustified technical modifications to the product, and inaccurate label declarations. Several Chinese producers claim to source their raw materials (birch logs and veneer) in the EU, and specifically in Latvia. Yet Eurostat and Latvian data on the volumes exported to China are negligible and certainly nowhere near enough to account for the volumes of birch plywood imported into the EU. The documents drawn up to certify origin have often been copied several times over or falsified. At the same time, imports of birch logs, veneer and plywood from Russia into China continue to grow. In our experience there are, unfortunately, cases in which the organisations representing international certification schemes (FSC and others) are unable to give consumers confidence about the origin of a product's raw materials. We hope the European Commission will act decisively to put a stop to these unfair and unlawful practices.
EU producers — AS “Latvijas Finieris” among them — will continue to monitor the market situation resolutely, regularly assessing import volumes, price trends and the authenticity of origin documents.
Plywood, and birch plywood in particular, is a significant source of revenue for Russia and Belarus. EU sanctions prohibit the direct or indirect purchase, import or transfer of plywood and other timber products originating in Russia or Belarus or exported from there. Related services are also banned, including brokering, logistics support and warehousing services. In addition, a number of oligarchs linked to the woodworking industry in Russia and Belarus have been placed on the EU's list of individual sanctions, which includes a ban on making funds or economic resources available to them, directly or indirectly.
To sell their plywood in the EU, Russian and Belarusian producers use companies in third countries that repack and relabel their products. These companies seek to conceal the true origin of the goods by submitting forged or misleading documents, including invoices, certificates of origin, harvesting site attestations and independent third-party certificates such as green labels. The goods are delivered by road, rail or sea. The EU therefore carries out rigorous checks on the origin of imported plywood throughout all supply chains.
In closing, I would like to note that every consumer who knowingly buys sanctioned goods and products, timber among them, is taking part in financing Russia's cruel and brutal “war machine”.