To alarm the wood-furniture industry – struggling like all manufacturing sectors with the scarcity and price increases of raw materials – was the decision of Russia to block, from the beginning of the year, the export of logs to Europe . Now the situation for Italian companies is likely to worsen if the introduction, in the fifth package of sanctions against Moscow under examination by the European institutions, is also confirmed to include a total block on imports of timber from those territories. Not only logs, but also all wooden products, including semi-finished products.
“The decisions taken in Brussels to bring the Russian economy to its knees are sacrosanct and totally acceptable”, says the president of FederlegnoArredo Claudio Feltrin, but which will inevitably have “heavy repercussions for our supply chain, aggravating an already complex situation for procurement of woody raw material, for the expensive energy and for the great difficulties of exporting to the markets directly involved in the conflict ».
Wooden floors, industrial packaging, pallets, are sectors that risk finding themselves without any more raw materials available, with backlogs and production stoppages.
“We therefore ask the Italian government for a fund to this for the supply chain, which supports the companies affected by the effects of the sanctions and to work immediately to strengthen the collection of Italian timber, a raw material of which we are rich, but, despite this, we are guilty dependent on foreign countries “.
FederlegnoArredo has also initiated discussions with other European trade associations to find common solutions to the difficult situation. «For months – Feltrin recalls – we have been working to propose to the European Commission the implementation of a trade defense instrument that prevents at least the export of logs from the European Union to third countries. We hope that now, more than ever, a positive response will arrive in this sense ».