Companies taking part in the forestry trade mission to China have generated sales of 418 million board feet of lumber, Forests, Mines and Lands Minister Pat Bell announced today.
"Total sales orders taken by the 2010 trade mission are five times greater than the China mission of just two years ago," said Bell. "This incredible surge in demand shows that B.C.’s annual trade missions and other marketing efforts to grow the Chinese marketplace are paying off in spades."
The forestry trade mission, led by Bell and including senior executives from industry, made several major breakthroughs to promote wood-frame construction and boost the demand for B.C. lumber in China’s major population centres of Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing and the Hebei and Sichuan provinces.
One highlight of the mission involved a groundbreaking for a wood-frame construction project in the Tianjin Economic Development Area (TEDA), 160 kilometres southeast of Beijing. An agreement for a multi-storey, wood-frame construction project was just signed in March, and now construction is starting on a residential building and two office buildings.
TEDA is one of most rapidly expanding areas in China and has experienced an increase in GDP of 22.5 per cent each year over the last five years. Senior TEDA officials also indicated their interest in establishing a free trade zone for lumber, which would provide a gateway to northeast China for B.C. lumber producers.
As well, Bell, Natural Resources Canada assistant deputy minister Jim Farrell, and Chinese Vice-Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Baoxing Qiu launched the inaugural joint working committee meeting to find “Made in China” solutions to existing barriers to six-storey, wood-frame construction. Vice-Minister Qiu was also receptive to Bell’s idea to demonstrate the benefits of pre-fabricated wood-frame housing by assembling a pre-fab home during China’s three-day green building conference in March 2011.