Empirical Study of Timber Trade in Tamil Nadu, India

This paper is an attempt to assess the major tree species that are being traded in the state and a comparison of domestic and import prices of the most preferred species has been done. India is one of the top producers of tropical logs in the world; on the other hand it is also among the largest consumer of wood products. It is also among the top importing countries of tropical woods since it cannot match its own demand for wood products with domestic supplies (ITTO, 2015). Tamil Nadu has more than 500 small scale timber industries, with majority of them being unorganized. The price had also been fluctuating between domestic and imported wood based on their requirement, quality, size and other parameters. Forty sample respondents were selected through snow ball sampling technique and initial references were drawn from Consortium of Industrial Agroforestry (CIAF) operating at Forest College and Research Institute (Tamil Nadu Agricultural University), Mettupalayam. The price variability between domestic and imported teak was evaluated using bivariate correlation analysis. It could be found that there was significant positive correlation between the price of country teak and Ecuador teak, country teak and African teak which implied that if there is increase in price of country teak, there will be increase in price of either Ecuador or African teak and vice-versa.