Vologda region is expected to process 100 percent of the harvested wood by 2024, says governor Oleg Kuvshinnikov. Only processed and high-quality products will be placed on the market in the future.
The forest industry in the Vologda region is developing and new wood processing plants are being opened every year. 2018 was a record year, with 17.7 million cubic meters of wood harvested, of which 75 percent was processed. In recent years, 23 projects from the Vologda region have been approved to the list of priority investments in the forest sector. Thanks to the completed investment projects, among other things, the production capacity of sawn wood has increased and five thousand new jobs have been created.
As a good example, the governor mentions “Vologodski les”, which in the last 10 years has changed from a small harvesting enterprise to a wood processing company. This year the company started plywood production at the site of an old house factory. The annual production capacity of plywood is 36,000 cubic meters, in addition production of large-sized plywood is planned.
The planned Sveza pulp mill is the largest of the investment projects in the Vologda region. In October, Sveza announced an investment agreement with the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Mubadala Invest Company (United Arab Emirates). The contract defines the key terms of the pulp mill project. The investment is estimated at $ 2.8 billion, with a planned production capacity of 1.3 million tonnes of market pulp.
Annually about 1.6 million cubic meters of roundwood is exported from the Vologda region, 80% of which ends up in Finland. In 2018, more than 90% of wood exports from Vologda region were birch.
Sources: Governor’s pages, Sveza, stat.customs.ru