In August 2022, the impact of the pandemic had been reduced, but China's macroeconomic growth was still under great pressure as demand contraction and other problems were still accumulating in many industries, and multiple difficulties persisted and overlapped for a long time. China's PMI rose 0.4 percentage points to 49.4 percent this month, the forces supporting the economic recovery are starting to strengthen, but it is still below the critical value, indicating that long-term downward pressure on the economy was still existing. The overall production of wood processing and manufacturing industry were recovered. Orders and production were higher than the previous month, the orders existed and export orders of enterprises are increased. The GGSC-CN comprehensive index for August registered 51.4% (43.0% for last August and 47.0% for August 2020), an increase of 19.7 percentage points from the previous month, and it returned to the critical value of 50% after five months. It shows that the operation of the superior forest products enterprises represented by GGSC-CN index was better than last month. See Figure 1 for more details.

Figure 1 GGSC-CN index trend from August 2021 to August 2022

Challenges

Poor quality of raw materials, difficulty in purchasing

Unstale quality of productions

Products in short supply

Hardwood flooring blanks of oak and birch.

Commodity of which the price has been increased

Hardware, metal, plate.

Commodity of which the price has been decreased

Dipteryx spp, Chiorophra spp, Taun, Teak.

As for the GGSC-CN index, in August 2022,four sub-indexes of GGSC-CN increase,one decrease.

The production index value was 50.0%, an increase of 41.67 percentage points over the previous month, and returned to the critical value after four months, indicating that the production of forest products enterprises represented by GGSC-CN index was basically flat compared with the last month.

The new order index was 55.56%, an increase of  22.22 percentage points from the previous month, returning to the critical value after five months, reflecting a significant recovery in the ability of enterprises to obtain orders. Among them, the new export order index, which reflects the situation of foreign trade, was 57.14 percent, an increase of 32.14 percentage points over the previous month, indicating that the continuous decline of export orders.

The main raw material inventory index was 44.44%,  a decrease of 5.56 percentage from the  last month, reflecting the increase in the number of orders and the acceleration of raw material consumption, indicating that the raw material inventory of advantageous forest product enterprises represented by GGSC-CN index decreased compared with last month.

The employment index was 55.56%, an increase of 13.89 percentage points over the previous month, indicating that the employment of forest products enterprises represented by GGSC-CN index increased compared with last month.

The supplier delivery time index was 44.44 percent, an increase of 2.78 percentage points over the previous month, indicating that the supply time  of raw material suppliers of forest products enterprises represented by GGSC-CN index decreased compared with last month.