Russia’s log exports to China fell 10 per cent year on year to 146,500 cubic metres in March 2026, whilst plywood shipments dropped 22 per cent to 19,400 cubic metres, extending a run of double-digit contractions across both product lines. That is according to China customs data obtained by Russian-based Lesprom Analytics, which comes as dropping demand is squeezing Russian sawmills.
On a year-on-year basis, average log prices sat 6 per cent above the March 2025 benchmark of US$134, and plywood prices were 12 per cent above the US$531 recorded in the same month last year, according to the Lesprom figures. The pricing uplift has done little to offset volume losses, with Chinese buyers continuing to favour Canadian, Nordic and New Zealand supply as Wood Central reported last month when China’s log imports slid for a fourth straight year, leaving Russian mills to grapple with a strengthening ruble and a Chinese property downturn now in its fifth year.
The March data extends a pattern laid bare in Segezha Group’s full-year results, as Wood Central reported on Monday, with the Moscow-listed producer posting a net loss of 88 billion rubles (around US $1.1 billion) for 2025 — four times the prior year’s result — after its lumber volumes into China fell 9 per cent to 2.1 million cubic metres. It comes as China accounted for more than 77 per cent of Segezha’s lumber sales last year, leaving the country’s largest forest company heavily exposed as Chinese property investment contracted again in early 2026.
Official Chinese data showed real-estate investment falling 11 per cent year on year across January and February, whilst sales of newly built commercial housing by floor area dropped around 14 per cent over the same period, extending a Q1 2026 slide Wood Central reported on this week alongside Morningstar’s China Real Estate Outlook forecast of no demand rebound before 2027. Birch plywood sales across Segezha’s portfolio were broadly flat at 173,000 cubic metres in 2025, with the company citing tariff restrictions and India’s BIS certificate requirement as headwinds beyond the Chinese channel.
The latest customs numbers reinforce the scale of a pivot that has failed to offset the European market’s closure since July 2022, when sanctions cut off what had been a US$3 billion trade corridor for Russian timber. Russia’s share of China’s softwood lumber imports has fallen 6 percentage points year on year, with Canada, Sweden and Finland absorbing the displaced volume.
Arkhangelsk lawmakers have pushed Moscow for a three-year moratorium on creditor-initiated bankruptcy cases alongside tax deferrals and a debt freeze, with Segezha Vice President Nikolai Ivanov backing the push as Wood Central reported earlier this month, warning that the issues raised were critically important for all Russian forest regions.
