Forestry as an investment 2019 (provisional)

• In 2019, the decrease in standing sales prices reduced investment returns on wood production to -0.9 per cent in accordance with preliminary data. Compared with the previous year, the returns fell by 14 percentage points. The previous year when returns were negative was 2012.
• The decrease in standing sales prices reduced returns by 5.5 percentage points. The returns on income from roundwood sales accounted for +3.8 percentage points of the returns, the value of net increment comprised +1.4 percentage points and wood production subsidies covered 0.1 percentage points. Total wood production costs reduced total returns by -0.6 percentage points.
• In terms of regions, returns ranged from -4 to 8 per cent in Mainland Finland. Returns were positive in all three regions in Northern Finland and in four regions in Southern Finland.
• The decrease in standing sales prices had a negative impact on returns in all regions, being clearly below the average in Kainuu (-0.7 percentage points) and Lapland (-1.9 percentage points). Net increment had a negative impact on returns in six regions. This means that the value of felled trees was higher than the value of trees that grew in their place.
• The wood calculation includes the results of the most recent National Forest Inventory (VMI12) that are based on measurements conducted in 2014–2018.
• In the calculation of returns, income, costs and the value of net increment are proportional to the previous year’s stumpage price value calculated on the basis of growing stock volumes and stumpage prices. In 2018, the stumpage price value was approximately EUR 53 billion. According to preliminary data, the stumpage price value was EUR 51 billion in 2019.

Returns available in the database were adjusted on 2 April 2020. The figures have changed since 1990. The information about growing stock volumes used in the calculations has not included groups of owners whose income and expenses have been included in the calculation of returns. These include limited liability companies whose primary field of business is other than forestry and state forests not managed by Metsähallitus. Furthermore, region-specific information (2012–2018) does not include growing stock in jointly owned forests. In conjunction with the correction, the stumpage price value was calculated for the entire time series using growing stock volumes in forest land for wood production.

The correction in growing stock volumes had on average an impact of 0,1 percentage points on total returns in statistics calculated per regions of the Finnish Forest Centre at a national level (1990–2011) and 0,3 percentage points in statistics calculated per the regions of Finland (2012–2018) compared with previous information published in the time series. In regions, in which the proportion of forests other than forests owned by limited liability companies engaged in the forest industry and jointly owned forests is high, the difference from previously published information is higher