NEW STUDY: Sawmill Industry in Southeast Europe

In the area of Southeast Europe, there are about 2.500 to 3.000 sawmill companies; 70% of them are specialized in beech, oak and ash production. Fir, spruce, and pine are produced in smaller quantities. It is assumed that there is 6-7 mil. m3 capacities installed but there are no precise and systemized data. In all countries of the SEE Region, the most of those sawmill companies are small and medium size, often family-owned, with the cutting capacity between 80 and 100 thousand m3. In the last years, the SEE sawmill industry was mostly concentrated on the topics related to the energy from wood. It is estimated that in next 10 years ca. 8-10 bill. EUR will be invested in the energy sector. Till now there is no official market or trend analysis about the biomass potential in the Region, but it is estimated that there is about 2,5-6 mil. tons of the biomass (Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia). The other important topic is optimization of working processes and increase of production value due to investments in the technology but also production processes. According to the officially available data, only in Croatia, it was invested more than 450 mil. EUR in the sawmill technology and equipment. You can find more about the study at: [email protected]