WhatWood interview with Sales Director for Russia, CIS and Baltic countries of UPM Plywood Oy, Alexander Totsky

Alexander Totsky: “The key to the success of the enterprise on the market is the production of a wide range of demanded types of plywood of consistent high quality”.

Russia is a major supplier of birch plywood for export. However, usually most manufacturers for both domestic and foreign markets offer general-purpose products with low added value. Sales Director for Russia, CIS and Baltic countries of UPM Plywood Oy, Alexander Totsky, told WhatWood about the conditions under which plywood enterprises of our country continue to work and what Russian manufacturers should pay attention to in order to improve their positions on the world market.

– Alexander, how do you assess the situation that has developed over the past few years in the Russian and global plywood market?
– Over the past few years, the annual demand for plywood has grown steadily in the export market of most countries. While in the domestic plywood market there was a drop in consumption. The reasons for the fall in domestic consumption are the difficult economic situation, sanctions and the unstable exchange rate of the ruble. Under these conditions, manufacturers were forced to export most of the products in order not to incur losses. It should be noted that according to the official statistics for 2017, the difference between production and exports was estimated, and there was a fall in domestic plywood consumption in 2017 by a few percent in relation to the data for 2016. But in calculating the figures, plywood export to non-CIS countries through the…

Read our full-text version interview with Sales Director for Russia, CIS and Baltic countries of UPM Plywood Oy, Alexander Totsky about plywood market outlook, situation on Russian market and developments at Russian Timber Journal №08-2018.