Segezha prepares plywood and lumber supplies for Uzbek businesses

Cooperation with furniture and woodworking businesses

Segezha Group has agreed to cooperate with the Association of Furniture and Wood Processing Industries of Uzbekistan on developing product supplies to the country. The agreement provides for regular deliveries to furniture and woodworking enterprises. The planned product range comprises:

Birch plywood.
Dry lumber.

The Yenisei Siberia Development Corporation accompanied Russian business meetings in Tashkent. The association brings together entrepreneurs in the two industries. The corporation characterised the agreement as Segezha’s entry into the Uzbek market; the announcement did not specify delivery volumes or a shipment timetable.

Segezha’s view of demand

Nikolay Ivanov, Segezha’s Vice President for Government Relations, Sustainable Development and Timber Policy, described Uzbekistan’s furniture industry as booming and expressed readiness to supply the quantities customers required. Segezha sees scope to expand cooperation. The holding also identified Uzbekistan as a leading CIS destination for imports of several Russian plywood and sawn-timber products by the end of 2023. That assessment concerns selected products, rather than every timber category. Segezha unites Sistema JSFC’s logging and timber-processing assets.

Earlier production and sales figures

In Q3 2023, Segezha’s plywood production was 48,000 cubic metres and plywood sales were 47,000 cubic metres. These were group operating figures for the quarter, published with its unaudited results on Nov 13, 2023. They describe activity before the Uzbek agreement, rather than quantities contracted for the new cooperation.

Segezha Group.

The Forestry Management and Woodworking segment produced 631,000 cubic metres of sawn timber and sold 596,000 cubic metres during the same quarter. Those figures exclude the Sokol woodworking plant, whose output belongs to the Laminated Wood Products segment. Sokol separately produced 33,000 cubic metres and sold 27,000 cubic metres of sawn timber.

Logging and processing resources

In November 2023, Segezha’s operations ranged from logging to specialised manufacturing. The holding had 15.9 million hectares of leased forests and an annual allowable cut of 23.3 million cubic metres, including priority investment projects. Segezha said its own resources covered 92% of its timber needs. Its key production facilities were located in Russia.