Documentation of statistics foreign trade in roundwood and forest industry products

Data description

The statistics on foreign trade of roundwood and forest industry products comprise information on the export of wood and forest industry products from Finland and import to Finland. They also give the total value of product exports from Finland and imports to Finland. 

Classification system

The roundwood assortments and the forest industry product types used in the statistics are derived from the statistical classifications for foreign trade, used by the Finnish Customs. Since 1995 the used classification has been the Combined Nomenclature of the EU, and in 1988–1994 the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System. The combined nomenclature includes approximately 10,000 item names, roughly 400 of which are classified as wood or forest industry products.

The country classification follows the classification used by the Finnish Customs. Finnish foreign trade is divided into six continents, which are Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, Latin America, and Oceania. Europe is divided into member countries of the European Union and other Europe.

A product’s place of origin is the country the product is manufactured in or where a financially significant part of manufacturing has taken place. Packaging a product is not considered manufacturing. The country of destination is a country known at the time of export to which the product is exported directly or via another country.

Sector coverage

As a rule, all products exported from or imported to Finland are recorded in statistics. To be recorded, products must physically arrive or leave the country. Transits and financial operations with no significant commercial volume are not included in the statistics. The trade of services is also excluded from the statistics.

Statistical concepts and definitions

Roundwood is unprocessed wood harvested from forests. In addition to logs and pulpwood, fuelwood, chips, and impregnated wood classified as roundwood are included in the statistics. Except for chips and fuel wood, roundwood is given as solid volumes, cubic metres over bark. Chips and fuelwood are given the degree of bark in which they exceed the border. Foreign trade of pine, spruce, and birch by roundwood assortment is divided into logs and “other” in the Finnish Customs’ classification. The “other” category usually only contains pulpwood, but other roundwood assortments may be included. In the statistics published by the Natural Resources Institute Finland, the name of this category is “pulpwood” in monthly data, and “other” yearly data, as these names best describe the contents of each category. Pulpwood and “other” may also include special timber assortments, which raise the unit value of the category.

By-products wood include saw dust and other wood residues, also when pressed into briquets or other such shapes. The sum of roundwood and by-products wood is described as “wood” in the statistics.

Forest industry products include products of wood-products industries (sawn goods, plywood, veneer sheets, particle board, fibreboard, wooden furniture, other wood products, and prefabricated wooden houses) and products of pulp and paper industries (pulp, paper, paperboard, and converted paper and paperboard products). Wood-products industries volumes (excluding fibreboard and engineered structural timber products) are measured by solid cubic meters.  Pulp and paper industries, fibreboard, engineered structural timber products volumes are measured by tonnes. Wooden furniture has been included in the statistics foreign trade of roundwood and forest industry products since the beginning of 1996. Wooden furniture parts and cane furniture are also included in wooden furniture.

Statistical unit

Data on the trade between EU member countries (internal trade) is collected using the Intrastat-system from parties engaged in foreign trade and under a duty to report trade. The reporting threshold has slowly increased:

Information on EU external trade is collected from the customs clearance system. In foreign trade in Finland the reporting threshold is only used for exports, where customs declarations exceeding the reporting threshold of EUR 1,000 are recorded in the statistics.

The statistical value of exported items used in the foreign trade statistics is the sales prices not including taxes, to which insurance and freight costs to the Finnish border are included (free on board, FOB). The statistical value of imports is the taxed value, which VAT is based on, from which all taxes collected at the Finnish border are subtracted. The statistical value of imports includes the freight and insurance costs until the first border-crossing location in Finland (cost, insurance and freight, CIF).

Statistical population

The statistical population includes all goods exported and imported from and to Finland.

Unit of measure 

The volumes of wood-products industries (excluding fibreboards and engineered structural timber products) are recorded in solid cubic metres (1000 m³, thousand cubic metres). The products of pulp and paper industries, fibreboards and engineered structural timber products are given in tonnes (1000 t, thousand tonnes). Values are given in millions of Euros.

Reference period

Month and year

Time coverage

Data is available from 1980’s.

Frequency of disseminations

Monthly

The statistics are compiled based on the Act on the Natural Resources Institute Finland (561/2014), the Act on Food and Natural Resource Statistics (562/2014), the Customs Act (1466/94), and the Statistics Act (280/2004). Regulation (EC) No 638/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics relating to the trading of goods, Council Regulation (EC) No 1172/95 on the statistics relating to the trading of goods, and the implementation provisions for these regulations guide the compilation of these statistics. The country classification used in the statistics is based on Commission Regulation (EC) No 1833/2006 on the nomenclature of countries and territories for the external trade statistics of the Community and statistics of trade between Member States.

More information: Statistics legislation

Confidentiality is a base principle of statistics and assures the confidential processing of data provided by informants, and the Natural Resources Institute Finland has undertaken to follow this principle.

More information: Privacy policy – Statistics

The disseminations of the Natural Resources Institute Finland are published online on weekdays at 9:00. Data is public after it has been published on the website.

Release calendar

Publication dates are confirmed in autumn together with the action plans. The release calendar of the following year is published for users in the end of the year. The release calendar contains data on the dates of future publications. The calendar also contains direct links to already published statistical publication.

Release calendar access

Statistical releases calendar | Natural Resources Institute Finland

User satisfaction

Feedback is collected from the users of the statistics, especially when revising the statistics. Feedback is also received directly. In addition, we investigated the wishes of users for developing the statistics in the autumn of 2021 and beginning of 2022, when updating the work programme for the Natural Resources Institute Finland. We follow the received feedback and take it into consideration in developing the statistics.

Accuracy and reliability in general

Finnish Customs collect data on internal trade in the EU from enterprises exceeding the reporting threshold. Enterprises compile an Intrastat-declaration of their internal trade monthly. Trade not exceeding the reporting threshold is evaluated separately and added to the foreign trade statistics without division to countries and item names. Enterprises engaged in foreign trade of forestry are typically large, so the coverage of data on EU internal trade is good. Foreign trade of Finland is recorded from the customs declarations extremely comprehensively, and the trade not exceeding reporting threshold has no significance to the accuracy of the statistics.

The most significant errors in foreign trade statistics are caused by deficient or incorrect data given to the Finnish Customs by the reporting agents. The Finnish Customs revises the mistakes before publishing the final data for the year. Usually changes made are small.

Timeliness

Luke publishes annual and monthly data of the foreign trade by forest industries. Monthly statistics are preliminary data and are compiled from Uljas database when it is published. Luke does not revise monthly data after this.

The monthly statistics are completed approximately ten weeks after the statistical month. The annual statistics include preliminary and final data of the foreign trade by forest industries by calendar year. The annual statistics are completed within eleven months after the statistical year.

Comparability - geographical

FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) publishes statistics on the production and foreign trade of roundwood and forest industry products by country in ForesSSTAT, which is included in the FAOSTAT statistical services. These statistics cover every country in the world. FAO’s time series for forest sector go back to 1961. Both FAO’s and Finland’s national foreign trade statistics on roundwood and forestry products are based on data from Customs Finland. These are fundamentally the same numbers, presented and categorised differently. In FAO’s and most other statistics on the trade of roundwood, roundwood volumes are given as under-bark volumes, unlike in the Finnish statistics. FAO publishes volumes of fibreboards as cubic metres, but the volume unit used in the foreign trade statistics of roundwood and forestry products is a tonne. The nomenclature used by FAO is very close to the classifications used in the statistics on foreign trade of roundwood and forestry products. The classifications used by the FAO are described in ForesSTAT in “Forestry Products Definitions”.

Comparability - over time

Changes to the combined nomenclature are made yearly, which makes compiling a continuous time series more difficult for some product types. Changes to the nomenclature have not changed the product type classifications used in the statistics on foreign trade of roundwood and forest industry products, but the items included in product types, or their definitions may have changed. We have tried to not make changes to product types in the statistics on foreign trade of roundwood and forest industry products to improve comparability over time.

When looking at the changes to the unit values of forest industry products, it must be noted that the changes to a unit value may be due to structural changes in exports or imports withing the product group instead of changes to the unit value of a single product.

The largest issues in comparability in statistics on foreign trade of forest industries concern the classifications of roundwood. In 1995, combined nomenclature was changed so that wood is no longer divided in to logs and pulpwood, only to coniferous wood and hardwood. In 1996 the domestic main wood species were once again separated. Data on the foreign trade of roundwood was improved significantly in 2002 as the wood assortments were readopted in the statistics.

Using conversion factors

Since the beginning of 2005, the Finnish Customs have compiled roundwood data as solid volumes, cubic metres under bark. The Natural Resources Institute Finland converts roundwood data to overbark volumes using conversion factors, so it is directly comparable with prior statistics.

The combined nomenclature now uses kilogrammes instead of solid volumes, cubic metres over bark, as volume units for some roundwood items (i.e., chippings and fuel wood). These volumes are converted to solid volumes, cubic metres over bark, in the statistics of the Natural Resources Institute Finland, and figures are thus comparable with older time series. Conversion factors had to be used in some of the planed sawn softwood, sawn hardwood, and veneer sheets. 

The older time series compiled in Finnish marks have been converted to Euros using a fixed conversion rate (1 EUR = 5.94573 mk).

Encryptions

In October of 1999 the export of three paper items was confidential in the customs statistics. These items were: 48102911, which is classified as magazine paper, and 48024010 and 48024090, which are classified as other paper. Correspondingly, in 2002 items 48024010, 48024090, and 48102911 classified as wallpaper and other paper were classified. The total value of the export of these items is published, whereas the volume of export is not published. Confidentiality creates problems in compiling unit prices when the value of an item is included in the statistics, but its volume is not. Thus, the unit values of magazine paper and other paper are slight over-estimates of their true unit values. Data on the volume of imported dissolving pulp was confidential for a long time, but data on its value was included in the statistics. The confidentiality of data on the volume of dissolving pulp was revoked in April of 2005. In January 2022 all confidentiality concerning paper products was given up.

Coherence - cross domain

Data on the foreign trade of roundwood and forest industry products is collected from the Finnish Customs and is the same data as in the foreign trade statistics published by the Finnish Customs. The statistics on foreign trade of roundwood and forest industry products, published by the Natural Resources Institute Finland, includes the following categories of the combined nomenclature.

44 Category (Wood and products made from wood, charcoal)

• All items from this category, except for charcoal, are included in the statistics on foreign trade of roundwood and forest industry products, and they are included in wood-products industries. In addition, wooden furniture and prefabricated wooden structures from category 94 (miscellaneous items) are included in wood-products industries.

47 Category (pulp made from wood or other fibrous cellulose-substance; recycled paper, paperboard, and cardboard (-waste))

• The items in this category form the forestry product type pulp.

48 Category (paper, paperboard, and carboard; paper pulp, paper, paperboard, and cardboard items)

• The items in this category form the forestry product types paper, paperboard, and converted paper and paperboard products.

The conversion of Combined Nomenclature to product types used in the Natural Resources Institute Finland statistics on foreign trade of roundwood and forest industry products is described in detail at the end of statistics release page.

Coherence between sub annual and annual statistics

Final foreign trade statistics published by the Finnish Customs are directly comparable to the annual statistics on foreign trade of roundwood and forest industry products, published by the Natural Resources Institute Finland, when using the conversion factors. Both statistics contain final information for the statistical year.

The figures in the monthly foreign trade statistics by the Natural Resources Institute Finland are preliminary and are not revised later. Thus, they differ from the monthly figures later published by the Finnish Customs.

Frequency of data collection

Monthly

Data collection

The foreign trade statistics describe the trade of products between Finland and other countries. The customs are a statistics authority, and enterprises engaged in foreign trade have a duty to provide the customs with data on their activities. The Finnish Customs compiles national foreign trade statistics including all product groups based on collected data. The Natural Resources Institute Finland compiles statistics on foreign trade of roundwood and forest industry products from the ULJAS-database maintained by the Finnish Customs. Finnish foreign trade is recorded in this database according to the combined nomenclature (uljas.tulli.fi) The combined nomenclature is presented in more detail on the Customs Finland webpage.