BC Makes Progress In China Wood Market

Saturday, November 08, 2008 01:11 PM

VICTORIA - British Columbia's efforts to open up the Chinese housing sector to B.C. wood products has achieved a significant milestone with a major renovation project in Nanjing City, Forests and Range Minister
Pat Bell said today.

The renovation project features truss roofing systems that use B.C. wood products, based on a Canadian design, to replace eight aging roofs for a complex of apartment buildings in Nanjing, located in the Yangtze River Delta region. Nanjing - following Shanghai and Qingdao - is the third Chinese city to introduce the wood-truss roofing system.

"It took two years to push through to completion the first roof truss demo in Shanghai. Because of the portability of what we learned, we accomplished the same thing in Nanjing in just six months," said Bell, who will lead a delegation of B.C. forest industry representatives on a Nov. 12-18 trade mission to China.

"We are excited to extend the use of this cost-effective, energy efficient technology into the Yangtze Delta, home to more then 200 million Chinese people. This opens up a huge market for B.C. forest products and helps us diversify our exports beyond the U.S. market."

Most Chinese still live in low-rise, concrete apartment buildings. Many of these buildings were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s and now need major upgrades, including new roofs, insulation, plumbing and electrical systems. The number of buildings needing repairs is estimated in the tens of thousands.

Wood-frame roofing has significant growth potential in China. Low-rise, multi-family housing represents a potential market of up to 2.8 million cubic metres per year for spruce-pine-fir lumber in roof systems alone.

Forestry Innovation Investment, the Crown agency responsible for marketing B.C. wood products globally, and the Canada Wood Group have been working for several years with officials in Shanghai to use Canadian advanced wood technology to meet Chinese housing needs. The wood-truss roofing system is a result of this collaboration.

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Posted on Saturday, November 08, 2008 01:11 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: yep on November 8 2008 3:34 PM

now ' does that mean using bc lumber & manufactured in bc or does it mean shipping whole logs to be prossed in china? tell me pat bell.what are you really saying?

Posted by: lmorg on November 9 2008 1:06 AM

8. Just 8. That's some progress. Wouldn't even pay for the transporting of the trusses over there.

Posted by: lmorg on November 9 2008 1:07 AM

They'll take the trusses and simply copy them with their own wood. They've been copy cating for years.

Posted by: acrider54 on November 9 2008 6:27 AM

Doomed agin

Posted by: netsurfer on November 9 2008 10:03 AM

I think both "yep" & "Imorg" are onto something.There is no way that China is going to our price for the finished product.

Posted by: Andyfreeze on November 9 2008 10:18 AM

Bang on Imorg!
China will whip you at every turn when it comes to wheeling and dealing!
In the world of internationl business,that is a known fact.
I recall the Chairman of the Board for a major worldwide shipping company telling me once that if China signs a deal with your company,it's because they already got you!
And I seriously doubt that we have anyone even remotely capable of dealing with them!
Sure as hell not Pat Bell!
One way or the other,they WILL beat you in the deal over the long term,and they WILL get the better of you!
And when the time is right,they WILL screw you!

Posted by: Palopu on November 9 2008 11:06 AM

China's economy is crashing as we speak with millions of people unemployed. This Country is going to experience some pretty serious domestic problems in the next few years.

I wouldnt count on getting much more out of them than we presently do.

Posted by: DPJ on November 9 2008 11:08 AM

People in China are very smart people and give only one chance to people. Lets hope that this goes well and then we are not as dependent on the yanks....

Posted by: diplomat on November 9 2008 12:13 PM

"This Country is going to experience some pretty serious domestic problems in the next few years."

Dare I mention the *O* word? (No, it's not Obama...) - it's Overpopulation.

Multiply Canada's population by 45 with basically the same land area.

If something goes awry here a few ten thousand people are affected. There, a few million.

Quite a bind to be in.

Posted by: gus on November 9 2008 1:23 PM

China has been around for thousands of years. Canada not even for 200 years. I would not worry about the Chinese.

We ahve a workforce of about 18 million. They have a workforce of about 800 million.

We have 2% in agriculture. They have 43% in agriculture. That means in Canada we have 360,000 in agriculture and they have 344 million - 10 times the population in Canada.

The dynamics are completely different. To even hazard a guess of what a loss in overseas markets for less than a decade will do to a country like China is ludicrous.

They are flush with trade surplus credits and may just aquire a few strategic businesses in North America that can be had at bargain prices.

As far as dimension lumber gang nailed trusses go, they will be making their own sooner than later if they can promote the building method.

Posted by: woodwoman on November 9 2008 1:51 PM

I want to be the suitcase carrier to China for Pat - it would be a cheap trip - wow - how does a Minister of Forestry explain to the people of Mackenzie that he is on another sight-seeing trip!! Shame on Pat - oh well, with a 37+% wage hike he can bring alot of souvenirs home.

Posted by: socredible on November 9 2008 2:15 PM

The Chinese are indeed a great people, but nowadays they need 'overseas markets' as badly as every other country needs them, Gus.

Not because they're unable to 'physically' live without them, but because the present world-wide 'financial system' requires they have them.

No industrialised country, not the USA, nor Canada, Britain, the EU countries, China, Japan, India, or any other can 'buy' ALL its own production with the total incomes its citizens receive from making that production.

They all have to 'dump' their unsaleable surpluses on some other country. This is a complete perversion of why international trade should be carried on ~ which is to enable an exchange of each country's relative surpluses to enable each other's citizens to have a diversification of consumption. (Currently they do, to a degree, but at an ever rising price to their respective societies as a whole).

Under the current financial arrangements, the total 'costs of production' are always in excess of total incomes DISTRIBUTED in 'money' in any same given time period.

The difference is made up by increased, unrepayable debt; and credits received from having a so-called 'favourable' balance of trade.

Not a sensible exchange of one nation's surplus products for another's, but rather an exchange of one country's goods for international 'credit' convertable into its national currency.

When any industialised country cannot win a 'trade-war', (and under the current set up someone has to lose, always), it won't be long before it will be arming itself to the teeth to wage another kind of war.

Posted by: Harbinger on November 9 2008 4:31 PM

A "small town" in China has 2 million people. Go figure.

Posted by: Palopu on November 9 2008 8:40 PM

China has 10 to 20 million unemployed of which at least 10 million have no access to Government benifits as they do not show on the Governments unemployment list. These are people who came from the Countrys to work in the Cities and now because of the closure of manufacturing plants they are unemployed. Their only recourse at this time is to return to the country and work for 50% less per annum or not to work at all.

The Chinese Goverment has just announced a $600 Billion infusion into its economy to be spent in infrastructure etc; to try to increase employment and reduce job losses.

In addition because of the **one child only** policy of China for the past 30 years, they now have 20 million or more young men than women, which has created a serious problem.

Put this all together and you have a recipe for major social problems, which could lead to razing Cities, rape, and pillage.

For every action there is a reaction.

Posted by: Eagleone on November 9 2008 9:42 PM

I agree with Palopu on this one. Unless the communist government starts to open up the political system to address the grievance of its people, then I think it could unravel fairly quickly for them and once it starts it won't be stopped by anyone, because no one will be able to stop it short of mass genocide by the communist government... and I don't think the world would stand by for that. All people yearn to be free and have a voice in their society in times that are tough... especially once they have experienced a taste of prosperity... and the Chinese will be no different.

China is at its environmental limits now and the profits of the elites will not be tolerated if the existential future of the lower class people is the cost of further 'progress'. I think it will be environmental sustainability, rather than economics that will trigger a revolution in China.

In the meantime Pat Bell will likely be working on raw log sales behind the false facade of roofing truss exports as a political cover for negotiating the export deals for his logging buddies customers.

Time Will Tell

Posted by: gus on November 9 2008 10:06 PM

10 to 20 million unemployed of an 800 million workforce. That is 2.5% unemployed if we use the 20 million. The official figure as given by the CIA is about 4% in the urbanized areas.

The total numbers are staggering. However the realtional numbers are not staggering by any means.

If a country of 1+billion people with the smarts of the Chinese to boot, cannot figure out how to work within their own borders to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, then we might as well give up.

Socredible's scenario of world trade is fine for small countries. When one has a critical mass of a billion+, such principles go out the door.

Posted by: socredible on November 10 2008 8:20 AM

No they don't, Gus. Prior to World War II, and for a short time thereafter, the USA was very nearly completely 'physically' self-sufficent in being able to access everything it needed to maintain its high standard of living completely from within its borders, or territory under its direct control. America was even a net exporter of oil.

The same could be said for the British Commonwealth and Empire, which at that time was mostly still 'empire'.

Yet neither of these vast entities could 'financially' carry on 'in peacetime' and maintain a steady, let alone rising standard of living for all the people within them, without "export" markets that brought in 'money' instead of alternate 'goods'.

And the same is true of modern China. It will be thus until there is a move to relate the 'figures' of Finance to the national realities of actual Production and Consumption. So far, in China and elsewhere, (particularly post-election in the USA), the move is in the exact opposite direction.