Timber, furniture prices up 36pc after logging ban

A three-wheeler transports timber. PHOTO | LABAN WALLOGA

What you need to know:

  • Acute shortage of logs hit saw millers’ ability to meet demand from builders, carpenters and block-board manufacturers, helping push up prices by 24 per cent in the past three months.

The logging ban has triggered a 36.18 percent and 11.73 percent rise in timber and furniture prices, respectively, in the past year.

According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) Producer Prices Index (PPI) for quarter three, acute shortage of logs hit saw millers’ ability to meet demand from builders, carpenters and block-board manufacturers, helping push up prices by 24 per cent in the past three months.

Kenya Association of Manufacturers timber sub-sector committee chairman Hitesh Mediratta, however, termed the rise artificial, saying it helped justify direct importation of finished furniture since locally made items were deemed expensive.

“We need to lift the ban on logging and deliberately regulate harvest of mature trees so as to enable saw millers resume operations. This will revive the local timber and furniture industry as supply improves. This will see timber prices drop to normal levels,” he said.

The PPI also showed that manufactures of paper products experienced a 7.72 per cent cost rise in the last one year with the last three months accounting for a 3.46 per cent rise. Jua Kali artisans making fabricated metal products increased their prices by 9.14 per cent in the past year with the last three months registering a paltry 0.9 per cent rise.

Rise in petrol product prices that has pushed transport prices up affected the price of stones, ballast and sand. Prices rose by 9.83 per cent in the past year and by 3.3 per cent in the last three months.

The ongoing crackdown on uninspected sugar diminished supplies in the past three months with prices rising by 16.1 per cent, where wholesale prices for a tonne of sugar rose from Sh81,658 to Sh127,012.