Wood Plank Sector Keeps on Growing

Thanks to the investments that the local producers made in the past few years, the production capacities has increased more than the demand. In 2012, 1.4 million m3 new MDF and chip-plank production capacity was available. That is why the current capacity is enough for both the Turkish market and global markets.

In 2012 the usage of capacity rate was 80-85%. The players in the industry have TSE and ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 certificates mostly. According to this, it can be said that high quality of production preserves the competition.

Especially lately, there are new facilities that purchased the best machines of the world and produces according to the world standards. However there are several companies that are still in production with the old technology, which can face to lose the competition in the future.

It is not easy to export only plank since the product is heavy as the weight but cheap as the price. Furniture sector will export plank eventually when it develops itself on production, design, marketing and brand issues and increases the rates of export. The modern investments in the panel sector should continue along with the investments in the sectors of furniture as well. In addition to this there should be new marketing, design and brand strategies so that Turkey can be the base in panel just like it is in Europe and neighbors.

Potential development areas should be the exporting of planks and panel to the neighbor countries.

Turkey is not just the market of 75 millions of people but also the 950 millions of people with the population around, Balkans, Middle East, Black Sea, Mediterranean. These places are our culturally and historically connected markets.

However, the biggest problem of the plank sector is to obtain the enough, high quality and cheap raw material. Turkish natural raw materials are disadvantageous comparing to European ones, which leads discouragement of the local producers. Our wood prices are double times of Europe and four times of Russia, America and Ukraine.

As it is known the facilities are basically in İzmit, Adapazarı areas because of their vicinity to wood-based areas, however the demand is not equal to request, chips are imported from America, Brazil, Canada and Ukraine, Russia.

Turkey is one of the 5 biggest producers (the total of the market is 10) has the %80 of the share of the market. It has % 85 of the share for the chip-plank market. The total production capacity of producing MDF and chip-plank is 9.2 millions m3 / year. Wood-based panel sector capacity is easily enough for the local market demand.

In 2012 the sector’s export is 80.000 m3 (250 millions Euro) importing is 600.000 m3 (130 millions of Euro). The total is (local market and export) is 2.6 billions of Dollar.