An insight into Latvia's timber product portfolio

Latvia's timber product portfolio does not look encouraging: more than 50% of timber product exports consist of wood fuel, roundwood and sawn timber. Against the backdrop of other European countries, this structure looks decidedly weak. The proportion of wood fuel in the timber product export portfolio accounts for an ever-increasing share. Conversely, the export growth of more complex products — those with higher added value and greater knowledge/skill intensity — is lagging behind. Wood fuel is one possible way of utilising the technological residues of other primary processed products, yet there are many different ways of processing low-value timber into various types of higher value-added products. Of course, this requires investment, expertise and desire.