Plywood manufacturers across India are now leaning on imported eucalyptus core veneer coming from Tanzania and Cambodia, as domestic timber prices and log shortages push production costs higher. That is according to the International Tropical Timber Organization whose latest Tropical Timber Market Report, published on Monday, records the shift across the country’s panel sector.
“Imported veneers offer cost-effective alternatives to domestic raw materials,” the report states, with panel factories across Punjab and Haryana resuming operations and cutting their exposure to the record poplar and plantation eucalypt prices that forced some northern mills to reduce production or close.
Tanzania shipped US$6.12 million of veneer sheets into India in 2024 alone, according to United Nations Comtrade figures, with the report’s price tables listing Tanzanian teak logs at $515 a hoppus cubic metre C&F Indian ports. The trade places Dar es Salaam inside an East African veneer economy where Chinese-backed mills have made Kenya a hub for plywood inputs.
Shipment records compiled by trade data firm Volza name Century Plyboards among the Indian buyers taking Tanzanian core veneer, alongside Akum Plywood and the Indian Teak Company, with every logged consignment described in the bills of lading as eucalyptus core veneer.
Finished plywood runs into the opposite treatment at the border, with Bureau of Indian Standards rules including IS 303 mandatory for domestic and imported panels since February 2025. Domestic makers clear certification in a standard 30 days, while foreign suppliers under the Foreign Manufacturers Certification Scheme face audits of up to 180 days through testing, factory checks, and paperwork.
Suppliers have adjusted in response, working with compliance agencies and testing stock before it ships, a shift that hands buyers a steadier supply of raw material but far longer planning cycles on finished panel.
It comes as panel producers announce price increases across MDF, particleboard, and edge banding, with furniture makers holding contracts agreed before the increases took effect.
Domestic buyers absorb the output, with market researcher IndexBox ranking India second globally for plywood production and third for consumption, both running near 12 million cubic metres a year. The export that does move tends to travel as furniture rather than as panel, with Indian wooden furniture to the EU and UK rising 7.8 per cent to 28,000 tonnes in the four months to April, according to the report’s analysis of Eurostat and UK customs data.
Policy support for private planting on degraded land, with afforestation charges waived and Kerala among the states paying incentives for eucalyptus, poplar, and teak, could widen domestic fibre supply over time, though the report treats imported core veneer as the answer to the shortage now.
India’s demand explains the reach across the Indian Ocean, on course to climb 70 per cent to 98 million cubic metres of roundwood by 2030. IndexBox already ranks Tanzania as the fastest-growing of India’s main veneer suppliers by import value, a lane the border keeps open while finished plywood waits.
