Poland Plans to Limit Wood Exports, Declare It Strategic

The government introduced a law last week that included the deconstruction as a task for a state-owned company, Adam Hlebowicz, the head of a team supervising the event, told a news conference on Wednesday."Development and technology minister Krzysztof Paszyk said the government began the work in March at a news conference last week. The bill is anticipated to come together in the final version over the next couple of weeks, he said. “Woods' recognition as a strategic resource will contribute to their accessibility for domestic processing industries and will stop the drain of raw materials,” Paszyk said.

Broader Scrutiny and EU-Level Proposal
The oncoming law is also expected to bring in more stringent control over the wood supply chain, thus enabling the authorities to monitor where the wood is coming from and where it is going. Paszyk also expressed worries that a large part of the Polish wood is currently exported to countries like China and re-imported back to the country as products, like furniture.

He also stressed that the domestic wood industry — which comprises some 40,000 companies and directly or indirectly employs nearly a million people — was important. More than 5% of Poland’s GDP comes from that sector.

To bolster the local industry further, the ministry also intends to call for similar export restrictions across the European Union, in an effort to stop the export of raw wood from outside the bloc.

Export Figures See Sharp Rise
In 2024, Poland sold abroad 4.2 million cubic meters of raw wood, 900 thousand cubic meters more than in 2023. This is up over 26% according to Polish Economic Chamber of the Wood Industry figures. The government hopes the new rule will help manage domestic demand and support a critical slice of the Polish economy.