BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and their impact on the future of the Australian forestry sector are one of the hottest topics on the agenda at the upcoming “Future Forestry Finance Conference” being held in Sydney this March.
For the international forestry and finance sectors BRIC refers to the key global trading giants of interest to international wood marketers – Brazil, Russia, India and China. Brazil is a threat as it can grow fast-maturing hardwood tree species; Russia is a major player in log exports, but has recently hiked tariffs on its own unprocessed timber exports. India has long been a promised growth market for wood producers and for other forest products. Finally China is the King Kong of wood markets with most wood-based exporting countries benefiting from China’s buoyant markets for wood products.
Many wood exporting countries have been favoured with steady growth in wood products demand from China during 2009 while other industries struggled to emerge from recession.
Finance leaders targeting the forestry sector for forestry have been actively registering their interest for this very topical pan-forestry conference in early March. The conference of interest is about financing forestry companies and contractors for future growth. It all happens in early March when the Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA) brings together local and overseas experts for the inaugural Future Forestry Finance Conference at the Novotel Brighton Beach Hotel in Sydney on 1-2 March 2010. The Sydney-based event in early March is focused on strengthening ties between the finance and forest products industries in Australia.
Forestry is also now poised to capitalise on potential new rules for the next Kyoto Protocol commitment period which could make for huge change and growth.
“Forest products opportunities are set to grow massively in bio-energy and carbon credit markets– and finance company risk managers would benefit from a local and international market update.” says conference organiser John Stulen of the Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA).
The “Future Forestry Finance” conference is being organised by FIEA in association with A3P, Association supporters include Timber Queensland, the Institute of Foresters of Australia, Australia Forest Growers and the Forest Products Association of NSW. Conference sponsors include leading global forest products industry information providers USA-based RISI, Willmott Forests and DAFF – the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and Forestry.
