Speaker
Description
Wood is an important natural resource in several Northern and Central European countries. This study aims to assess the export competitiveness of wood products in the European Union (EU), with a particular focus on Latvia.
Methodology and data. This research is based on data from the Atlas of Economic Complexity. Wood product groups are defined according to the HS92 product classification at the 4-digit level of disaggregation. For each wood product group, we calculate the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index and compute the average export complexity of wood products for each EU country. In addition, we analyse the share of wood products in total exports and examine developments in global market shares.
Empirical results. Latvia ranks first among EU countries in terms of export competitiveness in wood products. The volume of Latvia’s wood product exports even exceeds the level that would be expected given the country’s forest area. However, despite notable improvements, the average complexity of Latvian wood product exports remains relatively low. This suggests that wood resources could be utilised more efficiently to enhance national welfare. Latvia demonstrates strong export capacity in primary wood processing products (e.g., fuel wood, packing boxes, particle board), but comparatively weaker performance in secondary processing industries (e.g., pulp, paper, furniture, musical instruments). Further expansion limited to primary wood processing is unlikely to raise the complexity of Latvia’s wood exports to the level observed in Scandinavian countries. The development of secondary wood processing industries is therefore crucial for increasing the export complexity of wood products in Latvia.
