Australia’s long run of import growth in Builders’ Joinery is continuing, with imports valued at a total AUD467.7 million for the year-ended March 2016, up a very significant 26.7% on the prior year. To put the continued growth into further context, imports for the month of March reached a value of AUD35.2 million, up 5.4% on March in 2015. Linked directly to the continued strength of the housing market, imports of posts and beams and windows, doors, flooring systems and the like have been growing strongly with prospects for further growth implied in all the available data.
The chart below displays the strength of imports and in particular, displays growth in nearly all months, compared with the same month in the prior year.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
Growth in the different forms of Builders’ Joinery has not been uniform over the last year. The following details the growth in the value of imports of the major grades of Builders’ Joinery for the year-ended March 2016, compared with the prior year:
- Doors (4418.20.00.15) ~ AUD68.135 million, up 19.0%
- Wooden Posts & Beams (4418.60.00.31) ~ AUD112.706 million, up 36.1%
- Assembled Wooden Flooring: Parquetry (4418.72.10.33) ~ AUD30,446 million, up 290.3%
- Assembled Wooden Flooring: Other (4418.72.90.34) ~ AUD37.218 million, up 72.0%
Of these larger sub-grades, the biggest mover, in total value terms, has been Wooden Posts and Beams, (including LVL & I Beams), which rose AUD29.872 million or 36.1% over the year to the end of March 2016, with their value totaling AUD112.706 million for the year.
Drilling further into that data, as the chart below shows, the annual value of Wooden Posts & Beams has begun to dip, having peaked in January at AUD114.753 million. Imports climbed steadily throughout 2015, with the first half of the year seeing the value of imports rise in each month, compared to the same month a year earlier.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
By the middle of 2015, the value of these imports had seen their lustre fade as the depreciated Australian Dollar made imports from the USA – the main contributor to this trade – more expensive, causing them to decline. This is displayed in the chart below, which shows imports by country for the year-ended March 2016, compared with the year prior.
Imports from the USA accounted for 71.4% of the total import value for Builders’ Joinery for the year-ended March 2015. A year later, the market share of the USA had declined sharply to 52.2%, but was still valued at AUD58.803 million. The actual value of imports from the USA declined 0.7% from the prior year.
Over the same year, the value of imports from all other significant countries grew, in most cases sharply.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
As an example of the near across the board growth in the value of Builders’ Joinery imports, Canada’s import value rose 72.4%, New Zealand’s by 73.6% and Austria’s by 133.5%, albeit from quite a low base.
Unfortunately, the omnibus ‘Other’ sub-grade is the second largest ‘country’ designation of Builders’ Joinery imports, with imports valued at a total AUD23.148 million year-ended March. The enormous growth of over 520% in the value of these imports from all other countries is distorting further analysis and must necessarily include at least one country that should be listed separately.
There are important messages and signals in the importation of Builders’ Joinery, whether presented here in terms of value or on the basis of volumes, which are of course, also available from the FWPA data dashboard.
What seems most obvious is that a trade worth close to half a billion dollars provides opportunities for import competition, if not across the board, then certainly in some of the larger value products.
