Latest / Best of Business / Mark Ross: Wood Processors & Manufacturers Association of NZ CEO on the timber sector escaping the tariffs

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Mark Ross: Wood Processors & Manufacturers Association of NZ CEO on the timber sector escaping the tariffs · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: Bright Iron Bread.
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  Speaker 2: Red twenty four minutes away from seven Now a local
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  Speaker 2: timber exporters, they are for now breathing a sigh of relief.
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  Speaker 2: The global timber industry will be immune from sweeping tariffs
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  Speaker 2: and posed on most of the world last week. This
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  Speaker 2: is to help America with home building and they successfully
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  Speaker 2: lobbied Washington for this. New Zealand exported about three hundred
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  Speaker 2: and sixty million dollars worth of radiator pine and to
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  Speaker 2: the US last year, about six percent of our overall
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  Speaker 2: timber exports. Wood process As a manufacturers Association CEO Mark Ross,
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  Speaker 2: he looks after our wood industry and joins me.
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  Speaker 3: Now, Hi Marc, gooday, Ryan, and thanks, bring on your show.
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  Speaker 2: Good to have you here. So what, first of all,
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  Speaker 2: were you surprised that there was an exemption given?
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  Speaker 3: Oh? Lord, not totally surprised. One of the main reasons
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  Speaker 3: they've got a section two through investigation on which is
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  Speaker 3: looking at the too many effects imports of our timber
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  Speaker 3: and lubber have on the United States supply chain. So
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  Speaker 3: that's only just close off on the first of April.
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  Speaker 3: In a way of submission, that inquiry is going through
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  Speaker 3: to probably November. So in the interim they've put this
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  Speaker 3: exemption on timber and number being imported into the US.
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  Speaker 3: And also our power of the lobbyists in America who
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  Speaker 3: actually helping our cause, local home building associations and the
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  Speaker 3: Building Materials Alliance. They're lobbying White House hard to make
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  Speaker 3: sure that imported timber can still come into America as
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  Speaker 3: a means of keeping house prices done.
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  Speaker 2: This is our third light. I mean, should we need
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  Speaker 2: to pay a tariff? Well, actually, if they do put
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  Speaker 2: the tariffs back on and they take away this exemption,
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  Speaker 2: presumably we would be in a better position than others
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  Speaker 2: because our tariff rates only ten percent.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd hope so too. In the products we supply
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  Speaker 3: they actually need. Look, there's no ponustrating out a processinging
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  Speaker 3: in America, so we supply products that go straight into
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  Speaker 3: do it yourself in the home market. And the high
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  Speaker 3: quality products are the durable and the appearance gave products,
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  Speaker 3: and they love them and they really want us to
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  Speaker 3: keep exporting those. So so yeah, just saying the market's
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  Speaker 3: going thirty percent in the last five years. So we're
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  Speaker 3: really hoping that, you know, we're not the target Canadians
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  Speaker 3: and Mexico eighty five percent of the US imported timber market.
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  Speaker 3: It's sort of the targets and we're hoping we make it.
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  Speaker 3: You can slip by, but it's a long shot for
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  Speaker 3: now here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, would that be your main competitor would be the
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  Speaker 2: Canadians going into the US?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, I know that not on the products that we export,
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  Speaker 3: but just generally, you know, they export a lot of
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  Speaker 3: lumber into the US. You know, chump's having a bit
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  Speaker 3: of a garment of late.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't like Canada. I don't know what they've
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  Speaker 2: done wrong, got something pretty bad, all right? So this
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  Speaker 2: is all kind of fine for you guys at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: You'll watch and see how it goes. What about the
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  Speaker 2: six percent that we do export there? If you needed
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  Speaker 2: to redirect it, would that be relatively easy to do
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  Speaker 2: because I know number one is China, write number two
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  Speaker 2: is Australia and then number three is the US.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it'd be pretty hard. The companies that export
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  Speaker 3: there is about fifteen to eighteen New Zealand businesses. They've
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  Speaker 3: worked really hard to get those markets, and they've actually
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  Speaker 3: spent a lot of time on the ground building them up,
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  Speaker 3: and some of them are actually sort of unique to
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  Speaker 3: the US, so it'd be really hard to substitute those markets.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we're doing a lot more to Asia now,
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  Speaker 3: to parts of Vietnam and Philippines for example, But yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: we'd love to retain it the US market, and if
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  Speaker 3: we can main tariff exempt, it'll be great.
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  Speaker 2: And what sort of stuff are we actually sending you
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  Speaker 2: mentioned like, is it home diy stores that kind of thing.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, it's like a parents grade timber. It's for example,
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  Speaker 3: there's products going in like prime treated terrible pine sightings
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  Speaker 3: and trom boards, so it's quite specialist construction products. And
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  Speaker 3: you know the durability when they've been treated as thairty
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  Speaker 3: as plus versus the local cedar and Edward products which
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  Speaker 3: sounds so durable and don't take the treatment so well.
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  Speaker 3: So and also we do long clear board, so we
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  Speaker 3: prone our pine trees. We got a great story to
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  Speaker 3: tell about our sustainable pine plantations, but that's another story.
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  Speaker 3: But you leave it and you get long clear timber,
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  Speaker 3: so they don't have any knots in their parents' grade
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  Speaker 3: and they look great on the houses and that you
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  Speaker 3: can see that around your Celand as well. Yeah, we've
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  Speaker 3: just got a real niche market there.
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  Speaker 2: Brilliant long mate. Last Mark, thanks for coming on the show.
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  Speaker 2: That's Mark Ross, CEO of the Wood Processes and Manufacturers Association,
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  Speaker 2: New Zealanders.
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