In Russia, the Development Corporation of Sverdlovsk Region (DCSR) has revealed that it has signed three new agreements on the support of investment projects in the forest industry sector with the Russian representative of the China-based wood processing company Haihao.
The Sverdlovsk region is among the priority regions in the Strategy for the Development of the Forestry Complex of Russia until 2030 to create the capacity of the timber processing complex. This strategy provides for changes in the structure of forest production through the creation of large clusters, which will increase the production of lumber and plywood, as well as provide integrated and further processing of wood, said Victoria Kazakova, Minister of Investment and Development of the Sverdlovsk Region in a statement.
In one agreement, a Chinese company will invest RUB 100 million (≈ EUR 1.3 million) in a wood processing project that will use 80 000 m3 of roundwood per annum creating 30 new jobs. The investor has already entered into negotiations to secure a site and is planning for the installation of the production line during this year.
The second agreement with Sibirkoekostroy LLC is a RUB 500 million (≈ EUR 6.5 million) project that DCSR has been engaged with since 2017. Designated a priority investment project, the company is building a wood processing facility in Severouralsk that will process 262 000 m3 roundwood per annum creating around 80 jobs over the next three years, of which 40 will be created during 2019.
The third agreement is supporting the investor behind LLC “LPK Bars” in the implementation of a large wood processing project. The RUB 800 million (≈ EUR 10.4 million) project consists of the creation of several production facilities with about 150 jobs in total, in the Northern Administrative District of the Sverdlovsk Region.
These facilities will produce sawn wood, furniture and wood pellets from the sawmill and woodworking residuals generated thus creating a “no waste” business. The first production site, a sawmill for the production of sawn wood, will be located in Ivdel whereas negotiations regarding the furniture production site location are ongoing.
Developing local forest resources
The strategy for the region is to further develop and better utilise its forest and wood waste resources. The logs will be sourced from local forests and this will have a positive impact on regional logging crews in addition to the direct economic effect of new investments such as construction and employment.
In the Sverdlovsk region, the annual allowable cut is 24.3 million m3 of which about 7 million m3 are currently harvested and processed annually. The region is ready to provide the projects of the forestry complex with raw materials and infrastructure. New projects qualitatively change the timber industry complex of the Sverdlovsk region, make resource consumption more balanced and increase the development of the calculated cutting area, including through the processing of low-grade wood and technological raw materials, said Maxim Prachik, CEO of DCSR.
Over the past three years, a total of seven new forest industry and woodworking projects, including the three mentioned previously, have appeared in the Sverdlovsk region.
The total volume of investments declared in the implementation of these production facilities, which range from the production of sawn wood, plywood, oriented strand board (OSB), laminated veneer lumber (LVL), furniture, toothpicks, ice-cream sticks and pellets, exceeds RUB 27 billion (≈ EUR 350.4 million).
