Wood panel demand decreases 60%

The Investor Daily-October 24, 2008 Amir Sunarko, managing director of PT Sumalindo Lestari Jaya Tbk, predicted that the wood panel demand had been decreasing 60% during current global financial crisis. He said that the global buyers were delaying their purchase to wait for ultimate drop of the price. In fact the wood panel price has dropped 15% than the normal price. On the other side, Jimmy Chandra, board of director of Indonesian Wood-Saw and Processed-Wood Association, is questioning why Indonesia that has a lot of basic materials of wood is experiencing the material shortage, while China and Malaysia that actually don’t have basic material are experiencing the drastic increase approximately 1.850% for the last sixteen years. Moreover, according to David, vice managing director of Sumalindo, Indonesian production of wood panel has been decreasing from 10 million m³ to 3 million m³ for the last sixteen years.