Bridges to Asia

How the Glulam Industry Is Making Inroads in Japan, China and Taiwan

Although the numbers aren’t big, North American glulam producers are quietly cultivating a foothold in the Asian market that one day might well pay significant dividends.

Glulam exports totaled less than five percent of North America’s 470 million board feet of production last year, but virtually all of that volume went to Asia. There are growing numbers of “window of opportunity” projects in Japan, China and Taiwan, and those projects collectively are opening eyes—and doors—in those countries.

The projects are being undertaken under the auspices of the American Softwoods program, the joint effort of APA—The Engineered Wood Association, the Softwood Export Council, and the Southern Pine Council, with funding support from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS).

Among recent examples:

• In Gumma Prefecture in Japan, for example, an elementary school used almost $460,000 worth of U.S. glulam. The activity was the direct result of several FAS-sponsored activities, including promotion of a winning design—the Kibi Kogen Elementary School—in the American Wood Design Award (AWDA) program. Both projects used the same architect and structural engineer, the latter of whom has participated in APA trade missions to the U.S., served as a speaker at American Softwood seminars, and was the engineer for APA’s Super House demonstration project in the early 1990s.

• Several pavilions using U.S. glulam valued at $240,000 were built for the World Exposition last year in Aichi, Japan, which attracted more than 22 million visitors during its six-month run. The Japanese architect for the Aichi projects, Hirofumi Sugimoto, also is a past APA seminar speaker and was recently a keynote speaker at an American Softwoods seminar in China that attracted architects and designers who will be doing work for the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010.

• A multi-purpose community center using approximately $150,000 worth of U.S. glulam was recently completed in Japan’s Ehime Prefecture.

• A trade mission to China that included a design seminar for Chinese architects led to the contracts for and construction of two glued-laminated timber bridges at a golf course near Shanghai. The two structures—one a three-meter pedestrian bridge, the other a 30-meter light vehicular traffic span—used approximately $130,000 worth of U.S. glulam.

• Two more pedestrian bridges that consumed $68,000 worth of glulam were built recently at a Chinese industrial park in Suzhou. Each was about 20 meters in length.

• Yet another glulam timber pedestrian bridge was completed recently in the Chinese town of Zhujiajiao, southwest of Shanghai. The 33-meter span employs four long-span glulam arches worth approximately $23,000.

• And in Taiwan, approximately $67,000 worth of U.S. glulam has been specified and ordered for use in the construction of a library in Taipei.

Several similar projects are under way, planned, or proposed. And although the projects themselves are typically small, the exposure they are generating in those markets, and their value in helping to overturn various trade barriers, is significant.

“These projects,” explains APA International Marketing Director Ed Elias, “help us gain access to regulatory bodies, put us in touch with those countries’ design and construction communities, and in many other ways aid in our foreign market development trade servicing goals.”

In Japan, for example, APA has an active role in revision now under way of the Japanese Agricultural Service (JAS) Glulam Standard. Of special relevance to North American producers are provisions relating to species equivalency, edge gluing requirements, and the use of laminated veneer lumber (LVL) tension laminations. APA is also working with Japanese regulatory officials to assure that the Association retains recognition when Japan replaces its Registered Foreign Certification Organization (RFCO) program with a Registered Offshore Certification Body (ROCB) regime.

And in China, APA is involved with publication of a Timber Structures Design Code, development of a Chinese Building Fire Code, and preparation of a Glulam Manufacturing Standard.

APA’s market development efforts in Asia encompass the full range of structural engineered wood products in both the residential and nonresidential construction markets. And although the obstacles to increased trade are long-standing and in some cases entrenched, it is important, notes Elias, to build on the inroads that have been established.

For one thing, he says, by helping to create demand for wood products abroad, whether for North American products or those of other countries, we help protect our own domestic marketplace from becoming the target of choice. North America is an attractive market to foreign suppliers. If we give up on offshore markets, we could find ourselves all the more quickly fighting a pitched battle to defend domestic market share against foreign competitors.

Secondly, global circumstances can change, and we ought not close the door to future possibilities.

China, for example, has the fastest growing economy in the world, and the country seems committed to economic reforms that include opening itself up to the outside world. Its ascension to World Trade Organization membership in 2001 underscores the point. The country has an aggressive housing construction policy and its need for construction of basic infrastructure is huge.

As part of its transformation, China is playing host to a number of high profile international events that promise to change the landscape of its cities, including, for example, the Asian Games last year, the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo mentioned above.

In Japan, too, where the North American wood products industry has a longer history of doing business, some factors bode well. The country is the second largest housing market in the world, it has a wood construction tradition, its economy is on the rebound, and it is adopting construction laws and policies that encourage the use of high quality products such as North American glulam.

Even more than in the domestic market, though, the keys to Asian market penetration will be to identify niche market needs, understand the motivations of the customer, and tailor products and support services to the specific requirements of the end-use—precisely the approach now being taken by the North American glulam industry.

For more information about APA foreign market development efforts in Asia, contact Charles Barnes, market development manager in APA’s International Marketing Division, charlie.barnes@apawood.org.