ABSTRACT
This chapter looks into the dimensions, structure, and development of the world market for tropical timber. It discusses the development of German tropical-timber imports and timber exports from Brazil and Para. The chapter deals with a look at changes in the technology and organization of timber-processing. Since the 1960s the real price level for tropical timber has remained relatively stable; since 1980 prices have declined somewhat on the whole, though at the beginning of the 1990s they showed a slightly upward tendency. In the 1970s and 1980s trade-policy instruments were used to set up tariff and nontariff trade barriers aimed at either protecting or developing sites for the timber industry. Wood being a commodity, there are strong economic incentives to invest in applied research with an eye to widening the physical limits imposed by the size of natural forest stands on the production, processing, and use of timber.
