Irish timber sales to UK set to double

Irish timber sales to the UK could double to €2bn a year over the next 15 years, with a huge amount of Irish commercial forestry set to mature, according to one industry lobby group. Last week Forestry Industries Ireland (FII) met its UK counterpart, Confor, in Belfast. “This is a big market opportunity for Irish commercial forestry,” said FII director Mark MacAuley. The UK supplies only 20% of its own timber needs and is the world’s second biggest importer “We’ve developed this big national resource of 400,000 hectares of Sitka spruce planted in the Eighties and ...