SEC quickly shifted to virtual webinars and supplier-buyer exchanges. While face to face interactions are preferred, virtual events have been an effective way to increase contact with international buyers. When travel resumes SEC plans to continue virtual discussions and webinars to supplement trade shows and in-person seminars.
 
On April 21, over 55 importers and pallet manufacturers in Mexico and U.S. lumber suppliers participated in an SEC webinar to learn more about pallet design software, the State of Idaho Mexico pallet market study, and the state of the U.S. softwood market in light of COVID-19.  Building on the success of the February SEC softwood lumber grading and pallet design seminar in Guadalajara, the webinar helped SEC reach more importers and manufacturers.  It also helped advance the relationship with Centro Abre, a pallet and packaging design institute at the University of Monterrey.  SEC and the State of Idaho’s Mexico office have been exploring ways to collaborate with Centro Abre to educate importers and manufactures about the benefits of using U.S. softwood species in pallet manufacturing.  The meeting was recorded and shared with SEC members.
 
On July 1, SEC’s U.S. and China offices hosted a virtual meeting for U.S. suppliers and Chinese importers. The meeting included presentations from speakers in China and the U.S. about the impact of COVID-19 on China’s lumber imports and manufacturing and the impact of tariffs and the tariff exclusion act on U.S. softwood lumber imports. SEC also provided an update on the U.S, softwood lumber market.  

SEC is planning a webinar in August with importers in Pakistan, FAS-Islamabad, and two Pakistani lumber trade associations.  A group of ten importers from Pakistan had planned to visit Maine, Wisconsin, and Georgia in June 2020.  The webinar will help prepare the visiting group for a 2021 visit by providing information about U.S. grades, end uses, and U.S. suppliers.  U.S. participants will also improve their understanding about the Pakistan market and develop business contacts and prepare for the March 2021 DubaiWood show, which attracts buyers from Pakistan.
 
To help maintain progress made during the November 2019 SEC Emerging Markets Program (EMP) research trip to Morocco, SEC is also organizing a webinar and match-making sessions in August for U.S. Douglas fir suppliers and importers in Morocco. SEC met several importers in Casablanca who were interested in meeting U.S. suppliers to discuss purchasing clear Douglas fir lumber.  SEC had planned to hold an in-person lumber grading seminar and business to business meetings in October 2020. The virtual meeting is expected to help establish business connections now that can lead to in person meetings at DubaiWood in March 2021 and a lumber grading workshop in later in 2021.
 

SEC is reaching international buyers and end users through its new YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaA_XXfjf4PfZvW--6w8rrg.  The channel features SEC and member videos including lumber grading tutorials and other educational and promotional videos. 

U.S. softwood species were showcased in an article about the new Oregon Zoo Education Center in the May issue of Wood in Architecture magazine.  Designed by Opsis Architects of Portland, Oregon, the center features Douglas fir posts, beams, and decking and pine exterior sheathing. The article also discussed the motivation for the products selected and highlighted the sustainability of U.S. wood products.

The project profiles supplement SEC’s ad series in Wood in Architecture and they help provide more information than ad can on its own.  The magazine has a circulation of 7,000 readers in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Singapore.  The full article can be seen here. 

Fifteen softwood lumber exporters and researchers from OSU and Virginia Tech participated in the SEC booth at the Taiwan Construction and Building Show in December.  The display, which was constructed of US softwoods, received over 420 booth visitors.
 
While importers who are familiar with softwood lumber report positive attitudes about US species, architects, designers and developers continue to express concern about the performance of wood frame and hybrid construction in Taiwan’s hot, humid, and earthquake prone environment.  To address this need for ongoing education, SEC, APA-The Engineered Wood Association and FAS-Taipei held a one-day seminar that provided information about US softwood lumber properties and engineering considerations for wood frame and hybrid construction. 

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The Softwood Export Council exhibited at the biennial Edifica trade show in Santiago, Chile. In addition to the standard display of US softwood samples, project videos, and photos of US softwood applications, the display included a sample preservative treated Douglas fir footbridge to promote the use of treated softwoods.
 
The booth was staffed by SEC Mexico and Chile staff and eleven association representatives and wholesalers from SEC and the Southern Forest Products Association. Traffic at the booth was relatively steady. The group collected 37 inquiries and fielded questions about US softwoods and the sample bridge.
 
Edifica is Chile’s largest construction and building materials show, covering 75,000 square meters and attended by over 40,000 construction professionals. The exhibit includes a range of products from heavy machinery to a variety building materials used in residential and commercial projects.
 
During the show, the group met with a buyer from Sodimac, a home center chain with 40 locations in Argentina, Brazil, United States, Chile, Peru, Columbia, Canada, Uruguay and Mexico. While Sodimac is working to grow the residential decking market, the buyer reported that due to the downturn in Chile’s economy since second quarter 2018, the company can meet its demand with domestic supply. He noted that Sodimac would consider imported species when demand increased. 
 
The Edifica organizer held a daily seminar on a range of topics. Representatives from WWPI and Western Wood Structures who were part of SEC’s Chile ATP work, were included in the seminar and spoke about preservative treating chemicals, bridge design, and the efficacy of preservative treated wood in bridge applications. 
 
While the seminars were somewhat disorganized and frequently late, they attracted large audiences and the SEC booth received several visitors as a result of our participation. In future, SEC will secure speaking slots well in advance of the show and work with our local contractor and the FAS-Santiago office to recruit attendees and increase awareness about the SEC booth. 

Fifteen representatives from private industry, lumber associations, state trade promotion offices, and academia joined the annual SEC-JLIA exchange in December. Now in its thirty first year, the meeting included one of the largest and most diverse groups to attend in several years. Experts on softwood lumber grading, engineered wood products, and softwood pellets fielded questions from JLIA members and provided in-depth information that contributed to the discussions.  

The JLIA meeting has been instrumental in helping US exporters establish and maintain relationships with large Japanese importers and pre-cutters. The meeting and reception also provides a platform for SEC and JLIA members to discuss market trends and issues of concern. 

Unspoken JLIA issues included declining European softwood log and lumber prices and declining Canadian lumber supply. According to the Japan Lumber Report, JLIA members had an uncharacteristically direct conversation with a delegation of Canadian lumber suppliers a month earlier about high prices and limited supply from Canada.

The US delegation also met with FAS-Tokyo staff to discuss issues affecting US softwood lumber sales to Japan and to communicate the importance of Japan toSEC and its members. During the briefing the US delegation asked FAS and the US Trade Representative’s office to speak on behalf of the US softwood wood products industry during the spring 2020 US-Japan Trade Agreement negotiations.

Under the agreement, tariffs on US forest products include a 4.8% Japan tariff on SYP and Ponderosa Pine lumber and a 3.9% tariff on glued-laminated materials, laminated veneer lumber, and cross laminated timber. FAS staff said that they would help where they could but that they also recommend that SEC inform USTR directly through the ITAC.  

Day two of the program included a tour of two Ken Depot stores and a meeting with Yuichi Shinohara of Shinohara Corp., owner of one of the Ken Depot stores. Ken Depot is a nationwide chain of 70 member-only building materials stores for construction professionals. 
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Shinohara is a large pre-cutter and importer of US Douglas fir. The company purchased a store to develop lumber supplier relationships with other franchise owners. 

The Softwood Export Council (SEC), the Southern Pine Council, and the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), exhibited for the first time at the Thai Architect Expo, held annually by the Association of Siamese Architects under Royal Patronage. The event gathers the country’s leading architects and construction professionals, with attendance reportedly reaching 500,000 – although attendance seemed significantly lower. The event was themed “Living Green”, tying-in well with the “wood is good” message delivered by the U.S. association speakers at a seminar during the event.

During the event, the group cooperated with the US Foreign Agricultural Service to conduct a seminar about the use of US lumber. The seminar attracted construction professionals and building material traders who attended to hear about wood products centering on the “Green Living” theme of the trade show. Speakers were:

• Criswell Davis – Designing and building with American hardwoods
• Rose Braden – Introduction to softwood species from the Western and Eastern United States
• Jerry Hingle – Introduction to Southern Pine lumber and preservative-treated lumber
• Xu Fang – Building with wood

 
The event was very well attended, gathering a “standing room only” audience of 84 attendees. Interest was high judging from the numerous questions that the presenters fielded, some of which were:

Bluestain – Echoing earlier discussions, attendees asked about addressing bluestain often found in imported softwoods.

Pricing – Attendees requested pricing of U.S. softwoods, a question that is often asked in new emerging markets. Speakers responded that there’s no easy answer as it depends on the species, grade, size, transport costs, etc. Nevertheless, research shows that U.S. softwoods are priced competitively in the market, particularly in light of rising prices of domestic rubberwood.

Termites – The audience appeared keenly interested in thwarting termite damage in wood, asking numerous questions on subterranean termites vs. Formosans (Formosans are a variety of subterraneans), types of wood preservatives, etc.

Follow up work to facilitate interactions between US softwood lumber suppliers and importers and manufacturers will be held in October 2020.  Please see the SEC Events page for more information.  

 

On December 10-14, 2018, the Softwood Export Council and its members, the American Lumber
Standards Committee, Western Wood Products Association, and the Pacific Lumber Inspection Bureau
met in Portland, OR with a delegation from the Korea Forest Service (KFS) and National Institute of
Forest Science (NIFoS) to discuss the Korea FQII quality labeling certification for imported softwood
lumber and U.S. manufacturing processes and quality control.
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The regulation, introduced in August 2018, requires each shipment of imported softwood lumber
include a quality certificate issued by an international government or appointed organization. Each
country interested in legally exporting softwood lumber to Korea must apply for FQII through
KFS. Once an FQII application is initially approved, final approval requires inspection and testing of a
sample of U.S. mills by the Korean government authorized inspection agency (now the Korea Forest
Promotion Institute (KoFPI). Under the current law (which was enacted on May 1, 2018), every shipment
of imported lumber is to be inspected by KoFPI before its entry into Korea and then the inspection result
is marked on the lumber.  While the law was enacted, is not being enforced and no international lumber
certification agencies have applied for FQII.

Following the formal meeting the U.S. and Korean representatives spent a day touring Sierra Pacific
Industries’ Centralia, Washington mill. During the mill tour and an on-site grading workshop, the Korean
delegation learned about softwood lumber manufacturing processes, grading, and quality control.
WWPA staff also accompanied the group to Oregon State University where the delegation visited the
forest products laboratory and toured a CLT building.
Later in the week SEC member, Oregon Forest Resources Institute arranged visits to mass timber
projects where the group met with the project architect to discuss engineering and design
considerations and project design.

As a result of the two-days of discussions with ALSC, WWPA, and PLIB, ALSC will continue to
communicate with NIFoS to see what additional information will be required to complete
the draft application that was provided by NIFoS. NIFoS will continue to review the draft application
supplied by ALSC and provide feedback on additional information required.

In the final months of 2017, SEC hosted two groups of incoming delegates from Mexico and Thailand. The Mexican representatives visited Seattle before attending the NAWLA Traders Market in Chicago, and shortly thereafter we hosted the Thai group in Portland for a comprehensive tour of the softwood industry in Oregon & Washington. While appealing to different markets, both of these missions focused on innovation at the mill and in construction, highlighting sustainability, efficiency, and the symbiotic relationship of these two properties. 

 These tours are at the heart of SEC's mission: to build relationships through more personal outreach. Hosting delegates is a strategic way to get importers from different markets to begin thinking about American softwoods, first because of the connection we've built, and finally because of the quality of our wood and the examples we have illustrated by examining creative end-uses. In demonstrating how and why the U.S. consumes wood, we join others to our cause, as our sites speak for themselves: wood is transformed for visitors into an exciting material that brings light and warmth into corporate spaces, character into homes, and carries enormous long-term benefits for the health of our planet. 

To prepare these inbound missions, our itineraries are carefully crafted to exhibit a holistic system that allows a burgeoning market to understand the advantages of American softwoods, and what it would take to replicate our best-practices. Our itinerary for the Thais is a great example: it included tours of a forest, multiple mills, a CLT exhibition, and construction sites that exemplified the possibilities of mass timber, while also demonstrating the opportunities for efficiency in construction that wood can provide. Likewise, our Mexican delegates visited finished sites where mass timber meets sustainability in public and corporate spaces. The seminars we arrange are supplementary, offering an opportunity to delve deeper and ask questions about what the visiting groups have seen. This technical training privileges structural lumber and construction sectors: when you teach people how to build with wood, they buy wood. And, of course, we include networking opportunities for our members, and exposure to our industry. 

There are upcoming inbound missions planned for 2018 that will use these same systems-based tenets. A delegation from China in January will focus on mass timber engineering systems, while an incoming Pakistani group in July will focus on sourcing. Ensuring our programs meet the needs of the markets they're designed to inform is crucial, as these are countries in different stages of development. Pakistan is an early-market  distribution area, while China has the infrastructure to handle mass timber and will be excited about the opportunities U.S. softwood can bring their growing skyline. 

Early this November, a group of SEC representatives attended the Edifica Exposition in Santiago, Chile to promote U.S. Softwoods. Both Iain MacDonald and David Stallcop both presented on the main stage of this event on behalf of SEC, and their talks centered on the inventive new ways wood is being used, and the far reaching implications of these modernizations. Below, Enrique Escobar introduces the speakers: 

In his presentation, Iain MacDonald addresses the ways in which we are learning to build taller, focusing largely on CLT. He points out the benefits of building tall wood structures, both economic, in building time and labor needs, as well as environmental, as wood construction allows for carbon sequestration and is a natural, renewable resource. Iain also addresses the learning curves inevitable in new wood building methods, and offers solutions to many of those concerns with the research Tallwood Institute has completed. 

Below, David Stallcop introduces a series of new products coming into the wood market, explaining the new, exciting wood products born often out of necessity. David discusses the origin of blue stain panelling, reclaimed wood from pallets, printing on wood with stain, and touches on multiple examples of prefabricated housing. In this lecture, David celebrates the energy of innovation as the driving force behind the future of the wood products industry.