Open Collections

Chung, Tae Jun

The wood product industry in Canada has been one of the most important economic driver. The global financial crisis in 2009 considerably affected the global markets; the US housing market crashed and the demand for wood products dramatically decreased. As a result, the forest industry in Canada, especially in British Columbia, experienced a catastrophic failure; the sawmills had to be shut down and thousands of workers lost their jobs, because most of the forest companies in Canada relied on a single market, the US. In order to recover from the depression and to reduce the risk of being reliant on the US market, the Canadian wood industry started the market diversification. Currently, the largest importer of BC wood product is China, followed by the US. However, the export trend shows that the Canadian wood product industry is still focusing on these predominant markets and missing valuable opportunities for diversification in the other markets. To reduce the risk of being dependant on a few large markets, it is important to identify the new or existing markets with high potential for growth in wood product demand and possibilities for higher profit return. The wood product market in South Korea is showing one of the fastest growths with an increasing demand for supply. There are many opportunities for the Canadian forest industry to expand and increase the market shares in South Korea such as wood housing market. In addition, the wood product industry in South Korea is demanding more wood product supply than ever. Hence, Canada should focus on further market diversification through penetrating and expanding into South Korean wood product market.

Graduating Project

eng

2013-11-13

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/45490

UBCV

Undergraduate

DSpace