The Swedish timber market comprises a small number of large forest industries, a large number of timber industry companies and about 340,000 forest owners, 90,000 of which are tied to forest owner associations with their own industry.
It has an annual turnover of about 80 million cubic metres. Sveaskog is a leading player and accounts for about 14 per cent of deliveries. As a large, independent forest owner without its own industry, we are a freestanding operator on the market. Our independence, compared to the paper and pulp industries in combination with our active timber trading, helps increase competition.
A division has occurred within Swedish forestry between the raw material side and industry. All the large industries previously had their own forest. Today several large forest and timber industries are dependent on stable suppliers with the capacity to provide them with the raw materials they need.
At the same time as our customers specialise their production, they place greater demands on the regular supply of raw materials in the correct volumes, quality, range, lengths, freshness and such like. In order to match the customers' requests, we complement raw materials from our own forests with those from other sources. We buy timber from private forest owners in Sweden, exchange timber with large forest companies and import timber.