Chinese buyers have returned to Central and West Africa’s timber trade, with new orders for Okoumé and redwood species reaching producers in Gabon, Cameroon, and the Republic of the Congo as FOB prices move higher across the region. That is according to the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), whose latest Tropical Timber Market Report finds the renewed demand has stabilised a market where producers are passing on higher taxation, fuel, and logistics costs.
Okoumé FAS GMS sawnwood now lists at €450 per cubic metre FOB, up from the €420 recorded in June, when Gabon moved against 50 forestry companies over unpaid felling taxes. Iroko has climbed from €70 to €870, Padouk from €50 to €900, and Assamela holds the top of the table unchanged at €1,400.
Elsewhere on the table, Bilinga lists at €700 per cubic metre, Moabi at €580, Sapele at €550 in Spanish sizes, Sipo at €540, and Ayous at €440, filling out a nine-grade sawnwood assessment.
The turn follows months in which cheap Brazilian pine and climbing freight rates squeezed Okoumé traders on two fronts, a stretch ITTO’s April assessment found offered no visible recovery for European buyers. Overall demand remains moderate, the new report cautions, with the firming carried by the return of Chinese orders.
Higher freight rates are working against the recovery, with ITTO recording a €20 per cubic metre rise on routes from Cameroon, the Congo, and Gabon to Antwerp, concentrated on services operated by major European carriers. Container charges to China and the Middle East also recorded slight increases over the reporting period.
Gabon has entered its dry season, with improved weather supporting harvesting operations and transport logistics just as Chinese demand for Okoumé and selected hardwoods reaches its mills. Azobé log supply remains tight, with exports to the Netherlands steady at 1,500 to 2,000 cubic metres a month and strong interest in table tops, the report prices at €680 per cubic metre.
Cameroon runs the other way, with harvesting slowing as the main rainy season develops and several mills ceasing operations or relocating outside the Douala area. Sawmills still running are working single shifts, holding forward order books of one to two months.
Conditions in the Republic of the Congo remain the steadiest of the three, with transport infrastructure functional, normal operations at the Port of Pointe-Noire, and sawmill log inventories covering two to three months. The weather splits the country, with the north still wet while the south enters its drier period.
The ITTO Tropical Timber Market Report now prices Iroko at €70 a cubic metre above its June listing, the clearest signal yet that returning Chinese orders are moving a market that spent the first half of the year pinned between cheap Brazilian pine and rising freight.
