Russia in the Baltic Sea Roundwood Trade

The Baltic Sea connects countries at different levels of well being and with divergent economic, social and technological resources. The countries are also connected by boreal and cold temperate forests, which have for the centuries provided a source of wealth. However, developments in the forest industries have taken a different course in the countries. Large, globally operating forest industry enterprises are characteristic of the Scandinavian countries except Denmark, which despite its small forest area has developed a successful furniture industry. Germany also has a strong but mainly domestically oriented forest industry, and the German publishing houses are among the most influential consumers of Scandinavian paper products. The Baltic States and Poland which posses a relatively high forest growing potential are mainly oriented to small- and medium scale woodworking. At the same time, the Northern and Northwestern economic zones of the Russian Federation have huge forest resources, but during the economic transition of the 1990s, the production and profitability of the Russian large-scale forest industries have collapsed and their technology has been severely eroded.