How can Europe´s timber industry make points on other continents?
The domestic timber industry has still good chances on the markets of North Africa and Asia from Stora Enso´s point of view. The market for softwood was in North America always extremely volatile. The growth will probably point upwards again in the USA by the end of 2007. Canada makes heavy weather of attacking the traditional markets of the Europeans because of their high freight charges and problems in quality. In contrast to that Europe is going to loose part of their markets to South America in the long run. What demands does an international company group have on research and development, testing and control? The research is supposed to support industry in reaching better standards. The number of cross sections with construction timber products like finger jointed beams and squares (KVH) is in Europe according to technical inspection agency 300. Particularly the prefabricate industry wants special squares. It would have a positive effect on the freight costs if we reduced the asso
