Quality description of roundwood price statistics in Sweden

Content

Main variables Average delivery prices (SEK per cubic meter under bark)
Volume delivery timber (cubic meter under bark)
Categories Sawlog/Pulpwood, Pine/Spruce/Birch
Regionality Northern/Central/Southern Sweden
Frequency Quarter and annual
Time series  Annual 1995-, Quarter 1999-, Tertial 1995-1998

Purpose

Price statistics to measure long term price development. Covering the need for economic analyses, national accounts and international reporting. Not for use by actors on the market to form a market price in individual transactions.

Population and coverage

Currently only delivery timber prices have sufficient quality in the data to be published. Delivery timber is when the forest land owner is responsible for delivering the timber to the roadside. The measurement of the timber is usually done at the arrival at the industry.

Delivery prices are less common than stumpage prices (includes felling) and therefore cover only a minor part of the roundwood market in Sweden. The delivery price market coverage is between 10-15 percent. The main delivery form in Sweden is felling by purchaser which stands for around 70 percent of the timber market sales.

The statistics does not cover prices for imported or recovered wood. There is also a lower cut off, prices below 100 SEK per cubic meter under bark are not included in the statistics since 2015.

Price supplements and value added tax are not included in the statistics.

Source

Data are received from Biometria (formerly SDC), a membership organization producing data on forestry in Sweden. It covers the activities of about 500 industries and the former four regional national timber measurement organizations.

Quality

The Swedish Forest Agency does not have a separate data collection of roundwood price statistics, it only reuses data from Biometria. The purpose of this data is originally not to produce official statistics, but to contribute and act as a business system for buyers and sellers on the timber market, which affects the quality of the data. It is up to the actor to use the business system and all the codes in order to optimize business transactions. Extreme values have been discovered concerning very low prices which caused the introduction of the lower cut off described above.

There is also a risk of double reporting as the regional boundaries are not always clear in the source data.

The data is based on the businesses own price lists which they report to Biometria per individual contract. As the quantity of sales is large it is difficult to examine that i.e. price supplements are left out.

Producer of statistics

Swedish Forest Agency, data available at www.skogsstyrelsen.se/en/statistics/

Contact person
Sebastian Constantino
+46 8 514 514 80
firstname.lastname@skogsstyrelsen.se