Shepard Says Forestry Future Is Bright
By 250 News
Tuesday, March 08, 2011 01:02 PM
Prince George, B.C .- In what will be likely his last address to a group in Prince George before he leaves the post as Canfor’s CEO and President, Jim Shepard told a luncheon crowd, that when it comes to forestry, the world is changing.
“The old world is being replaced by the new world” says Shepard, “We assumed the U.S. housing start report was the barometer of the Canadian forestry market, it took a crisis to wake us up.”
When that crisis hit it started a chain reaction that plunged the forestry industry into a tail spin. “Canfor closed 8 mills indefinitely, frankly we were fighting for survival.”
The good news for Canfor was that it had started a wood college outside Shanghai China in 2004. That college has since graduated hundreds of people who can build wood frame housing.
He says we are now entering a new world where demand will match, or surpass supply. Canfor’s shipments of wood to China have grown from next to nothing in 2000 “We were shipping enough to build about two cigar boxes in 2000” to 563.1 million board feet in 2010. That is the equivalent of the full production of three sawmills.
Shepard says the early runs this year indicate Canfor will ship the equivalent of full production from 4 sawmills.
He is predicting growth in shipments to other Asian nations including India, but the first real growth is China. ”This year, its estimated 30 million people will move into the cities from the rural areas to take jobs in factories. Just last year they became the largest exporter in dollar volume, replacing Germany.” Those people moving into cities will place a huge demand on the housing market.
Shepard says during his last visit to China, ( which was just last November) he had the opportunity to meet with subdivision developers. The developers told him they liked what they saw in building with wood and liked the reduced carbon footprint of building with wood. He is also amazed about the rate of growth in China, “I call it the U.S. on steroids. Beijing is synonymous with big league, it’s all big, it’s all new.”
Shepard says if it wasn’t for China, the Canfor mills recently reopened, would not be back in production. He says lumber prices are up, despite the fact that housing starts in the U.S. are in the 500 thousand range, about half of where they were at the height of the recession.
Looking forward, Shepard says he thinks there is a great future for the lumber industry and a great future for Canfor, “If you have any children or grand children who are interested in getting into forestry, encourage them, this sunset industry, has once again become a sunrise industry.”
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Posted by: acrider54 on March 8 2011 4:18 PM
So this sentence means what?
Given that China has a population of 1.33 billion people and Germany has 81.9 million, it sounds like it means that, on average, one German supplies the world outside of Germany with the same dollar value of goods as 16 Chinese provide the world outside of China.
Why? Because China still needs to produce for its own people to raise their standard of living? Because the Chinese do not have as productive an industry? Because the Germans produce goods which are in higher demand and have a higher dollar value?
Probably for all those reasons and more.