Face veneer availability to the plywood industry was noted to be consistently sustainable and affordable throughout the year 2019. The industry was in a comfortable zone for the procurement of face veneers. The entire year, the market had an abundant stock either from Burma or from Indonesia or Gabon. In fact, there has been a mushrooming growth in face veneer trading houses in the last 3-4 years that ensured sufficient stocks in the market. Earlier, the plywood producers used to keep huge inventories of face veneers in the factory because there were very few suppliers, but now it is not the case.
However, due to weak lift, the plywood production was reportedly down almost by 50%, hence the demand of face veneer also slowed down. There were huge shipments of face veneer containers received at the Indian ports from February and September, but the consumption was slow the entire year.
During the past year, around 2 dozens of Gabon based Okume face veneer producers established their warehouses in India, which were having sufficient stocks. Besides, there are a number of traders engaged in face veneer trade, with a good quantity of stocks of face veneers from Indonesia, Burma, P&G, Soloman, China, Recon, etc. At present, the Plywood industry’s few varieties in face veneers include PQ, Okume, Recon, Makai, Indonesia, etc of which PQ and Okume are fast emerging.