INTRODUCTION

The Asia-Pacific region consists of 55% of world's total population, and has the fastest growing economy among all regions in the world for many years. With such demographic and economic dynamics, its forest sector has expanded greatly over the last three decades. The region's total consumption of roundwood has nearly doubled between 1962 and 1992, from 593 million m³ to 1,161 million m³, while production increased from 576 million m³ to 1,100 million m³ over the same period. Historically, the Asia-Pacific region has been the world's largest exporter of tropical hardwoods, led by Malaysia with 13.4 million m³ in 1992. The Philippines and Indonesia were leading exporters in the 1960s and 1970s, but the exports declined significantly since 1980 due to the imposition of log export bans. On the import side, Japan has been and will likely continue to be the dominant importers of forest products within the region and in the world for decades.

It is well expected that the economies in the Asia-Pacific region will continue to have strong performance in the decades ahead, and such development will have tremendous impacts on the region's consumption, production and trade of forest products The specific objectives of this study are:

· To summarize and analyze the current status and historical trends of domestic production and consumption in countries of the Asia-Pacific region. Special attention being given to the trade implications of changing domestic consumption and production;

· To identify the main trade flows within the region and between it and other regions, and characterized their trends;

· To identify apparent key driving forces for trade volume, direction, and changes thereof;

· To propose a methodology for projecting developments in international trade flows of forest products with special reference to countries of the Asia-Pacific region; and

· To forecast future trends (till year 2010) of domestic production and consumption in countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

For the purpose of this outlook, the Asia-Pacific region comprises three developed countries and 28 developing countries and territories (Table 1).

Table 2 shows the five aggregated categories and thirteen products considered in this outlook. They are the commodities defined in the FAO Forest Products Yearbook.

The approach for this outlook for forest products in the Asia-Pacific region is first to review the past trends in the development of production, consumption and trade in the region, and then to develop an Asia-Pacific forest sector model. The report is organized as follows.

Part I of this report reviews and analyzes the historical (1962-1992) developments of consumption, production and trade of forest products in the Asia-Pacific region, by country and product. Part II introduces the main methodology used in developing the dynamic spatial equilibrium model of the Asia-Pacific forest sector (ASIA-PAC), describes the countries/regions and the products included in the model, discusses the demand and supply assumptions, and presents forecasts of the future trends (1993-2010) in consumption, production and trade in the Asia-Pacific and the world. The Appendix contains a bibliography of relevant studies cited or useful for future analysis of the region.

Table 1. Countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region.

Developing		Developed
Bangladesh	Myanmar	Australia
Bhutan	Nepal	Japan
Cambodia	New Caledonia	New Zealand
China	Pakistan
Fiji	Papua New Guinea
French Polynesia	Philippines
Hong Kong	Samoa
India	Singapore
Indonesia	Solomon Islands
Korea D P Rep	Sri Lanka
Korea Rep	Thailand
Laos	Tonga
Macau	Vanuatu
Malaysia	Viet Nam

Table 2. The forest products considered in the study.

ROUNDWOOD (SITC 245/246/247)	Fuelwood & Charcoal (245)
	Industrial Roundwood (246/247)
SAWNWOOD (248)	Sawnwood (C)(248.2/3)
	Sawnwood (NC) (248.4/5)
WOOD-BASED PANELS (634)	Veneer Sheets (634.1)
	Plywood (634.3/4)
	Particle Board (634.2)
	Fibreboard (634.5)
PULP	WOOD PULP (EX251)
	OTHER FIBRE PULP (251.92)
PAPER AND PAPERBOARD (EX641)	Newsprint (641.1)
	Printing and Writing Paper (641.2/3)
	Other Paper & Paperboard (EX641)