Beijing is driving the urbanization and aims to increase its urban population from about 54 percent to 60 percent by 2020, said JOC Economist Mario Moreno in the April edition of JOC Insights.
Exports of the building materials to China, the largest importer of U.S. logs and lumber by a wide margin, rose for 10 straight months on a year-over-year basis through January, according to data from PIERS, the data division of JOC Group Inc.
U.S. export volume of containerized logs and lumber in 2013 is expected to have risen by 13 percent year-over-year to 456,212 20-foot equivalent units. China accounts for a little more than half of U.S. containerized lumber and log exports, followed by Vietnam (7.2 percent), Japan (5.8 percent) and Taiwan (4.5 percent).