The Softwood Export Council has released its newest grade comparsion guide.  The sample deck swatches allows the various grades of a given species to be visually compaired side by side.  This is very helpful in markets where price is the key factor or where there are a mix of grades from other parts of the world.  The guide currently comes in 4 languages, English, Japanese, Chinese, and Arabic.

By Eddie Pearce

American Softwoods exhibited in Dubai Wood 2009 trade show in Dubai, UAE last month. The booth was supported by SEC members from NAWLA, OECDD, PLEA and the SPC.

The American Softwoods' booth with its vast  amount of softwood information provided strong interest to the visitors to the show.  More than 2000 items of literature were distributed over the three days of the show.  Visitors to the booth were predominantly from U A E and the surrounding countries such as Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia but also from Jordan, Libya, and far a field as India and Pakistan.
 
Investment in commercial construction together with "resort facilities" is designed to attract regional business activity and increase tourism to the region, and Dubai, while currenlty hitting a bump, is still leading this activity.  With all the building and construction that is still taking place in Abu Dhabi and the other Emirats, there is a large demand for timber and timber products. This reflected in the number of enquiries that were received at the booth the whole range of these products. Enquiries were received for glulam beams, doors, scaffold boards, treated Southern Pine decking and general constructional grade lumber.
 
Arabic is the primary language and many of the American Softwoods publications have been translated.  English is also understood throughout the UAE.  It was clear that most visitors had limited knowledge of American softwoods and the applications.  The level of attendance to the show was lower than previous years, but the visitors provided very useful information about the timber and woodworking industries in Dubai. 
 
The real opportunity for American softwoods would be in the secondary construction areas and applications such as interiors and external structures, as used in landscaping, i.e. pergolas, gazebos, decking and beach and marina projects, which in themselves are very large. This was supported by the number and quality of enquiries received.

By Edward Matsuyama 

 

	Total Housing Starts	Wooden	Post & Beam	Pre-Fabricated Housing wooden	Pre-Fabricated Housing total	2x4
March 2008	83,991	39,563	30,590	1,435	9,760	7,538
March 2009	66,628	31,304	24,222	1,008	8,485	6,074
Mar/09/Mar/08	79.3% %	79.1	79.2%	70.2%	86.9%	80.6%
Last 12 month	1,039,180	492,901	372,047	16,637	148,273	104,217
Compared to previous year	100.3%	97.4%	95.8%	92.2%	101.2%	104.8%

 

 

Housing Starts Increase in Fiscal 2008

Housings starts in fiscal 2008 (April 2008 to March 2009) increased 0.3 percent to 1.039million units. Despite a drop in owner occupied custom built homes, rental housing continues to gain market share. A summary of housing starts in fiscal 2008 is attached below

 

 

By Fernanda Vale Garcia

Expo Décor Arq tradeshow took place on February 26th-28th in Mexico City.  This is the third edition of the show. The Construction Industry supported the show and the main Mexican chambers and associations of all the construction-related spectrum.
 
This show is intended to reach not only the construction major players but also Architects, electric and hardware wholesalers; decoration, finishing and interiors specialists, hotel builders, apartments, remodeling construction and machinery and equipment vendors.
 
Even though the tradeshow had less exhibitors, the attendance was as good as last year's.  This year, "Espacios de la Construccion y Arquitectura y la Maquinaria", an important magazine in the construction sector, sponsored the show.   
 
There were approximately 144 companies exhibiting; and 110 companies exhibited construction materials, construction accessories and construction machinery.  Only 5 companies that produced retail furniture exhibited. There were about 10 lumber companies either for concrete forming, for furniture, for houses or for generic construction.  Also, we found different chambers such as CANACINTRA and CMIC, which are related to the construction sector, and traditionally sponsor the tradeshow.
 
This year, my impression is that the attendants were more eager to learn about the usage of lumber for different applications in different type of projects.  Raised questions involved softwoods to remodel theaters, TV stages, monuments, shelves and statues.  Towards this end, visitors to our booth requested laminated beams and different types of lumber either softwoods or hardwoods, but mainly for structural purposes.  They requested either OSB to use it on walls or SYP for heavy structures.  Finally, some people mentioned that they were looking for materials viable to combine lumber with iron.
 
I noticed that there were fewer furniture manufacturers for indoors uses. Typically, they use either lumber, plywood, LVL and OSB for structural uses and also they requested SYP for exterior uses; such as decking and wood housing construction.
 
The most requested species were SYP and Ponderosa Pine either treated or not treated. Few other people requested Red Cedar.  Regarding boards (panels), most of the questions were oriented towards requesting plywood and OSB in Mexico.  Some others inquired if MDF and Particle Boards and laminates are feasible materials to manufacture their furniture. Some lumber distributors requested us US-lumber; unfortunately they can´t import it directly because their company is not big enough to buy directly; for this reason, they buy from larger importers in Mexico, which can buy directly from the US.
 
On the other end, builder developers requested lumber to concrete forming for housing constructions -buildings and warehouses in most of the cases.  These builder developers were from all over Mexico, but mainly from Mexico City and quite a few came from other States.

September