European importers, distributors & end users

The Birch Plywood

Alliance

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Rationale

The Birch Plywood Alliance is an ad-hoc coalition representing European importers, distributors and end-users of birch plywood originating from Russia, aiming to showcase the strong opposition of European industry to potential anti-dumping duties.

The Birch Plywood Alliance brings together 133 companies from 25 EU countries, representing various sectors – automotive construction, climbing walls, furniture, packaging, parquet flooring and more. In a time of global material shortage, the anti-dumping case is not only unjustified, but goes directly against the interest of protecting Europe’s economy.

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Our 133 Members Include

About the alliance

The Birch Plywood Alliance was started in response to the launch of the European Commission investigation into birch plywood imports from Russia in October 2020, and the possibility of tariffs that would add up to regular import duties at a moment where there is a general timber shortage and a price spike occurring globally.

The Commission notified on 11 June 2021 the imposition of provisional duties of up to 15.9% on birch plywood imports from Russia.

Alliance members oppose these duties, for the following reasons:

1

The Commission’s chosen investigation period (1 July 2019 – 30 June 2020) is not representative, and imposing duties based on prices would therefore not reflect reality. Currently, prices are as high as hardly ever before due to high demand combined to worldwide shortages.

2

There is a supply and demand gap in Europe, with European production being only able to cover 60% of demand at best.

3

There is limited supply worldwide, meaning imports from Russia are necessary, as Russia represents 70% of the global production. There is simply no domestic product on the EU market nor international alternatives, let alone one with the same level of quality or technical parameters.

4

European importers, distributers and end-users will be suffering from an artificial price increase if duties were to be imposed, as they will have no choice but to continue importing from Russia.

5

The case complainants are a handful, seemingly representing just two Member States, and could not remotely satisfy European demand.

The Alliance fully supports the Commission’s efforts to increase Europe’s competitiveness, but imposing duties on plywood imports is not the way. The EU’s open economy is its greatest asset.

Our members are in most cases SMEs and family-owned companies which cannot absorb such a financial blow, with many of us having barely survived the pandemic.
This is the reason why we have gathered, to fight against the imposition of duties that could jeopardize our livelihoods.

 

 

 

The Birch Plywood Alliance – European Importers, Distributers and End Users is an ad-hoc coalition of concerned European companies.
Questions can be addressed to the Alliance’s Secretariat, managed by Portland Communications. EU Transparency Register entry: 7223777790-86
Birch-Plywood-Alliance@portland-communications.com