Spanish woodworking industry : geographical structure, export and import

Abstract: Spain has been the geographical area for this work, where Spanish Wood Products transformation sector have been studied. Spain has been divided in 6 different geographical units, which include the peninsular territories plus the Canary and Balears Islands. The Spanish Wood Products Manufacturers have been defined like the addition of activities regarding to wood and cork industries (sawmilling, board and panel production, wood structures and joinery carpentry, packing and other wood products and non-wood forest products) plus furniture manufacturing. For these activities data have been collected from two official online databases, the INE and Customs Authority one, from the year 1998 to 2003. The basic structure of the wood manufacturers has been described using densities and concentration values. In addition economic data have been used to obtain the sector contribution to the Spanish national economy. In a second part of the document, the main import and export movement of the sector have been described. Extra information has been collected for a group of five countries. These countries are: Chile, Finland, France, Sweden and USA, these countries were chosen by the important share of the Spanish wood products importations. Different results have been obtained for each of the geographical units, activities and the sector as a whole. The highest densities and concentrations of sawmilling and wood board and panels manufacturing were for the north-east units, while values for carpentry activities were higher in the north and the Canary Islands. In the case of packing industries the sector high value in the Ebro axis and other wood and NWFP products values were bigger in the Mediterranean Coast. Furniture manufacturing had high values in all the Spanish territory, but they were higher in the Central, South and East areas. In year 2003 1.4 billions of euros of furniture products were imported by Spain, which was the same value of the furniture products exported by Spain. Among the other products, sawmilling and wood board and panels products had a key position with an importation value of 900 and 500 millions of euros, also in the year 2003. In the case of exportation of Spanish wood products, wood boards and panels had a value of 400 millions euros, while the share of the other activities was lower.