RBC: Russia approved the sale to the Japanese of 75% of the largest timber company in the Far East Far East holding RFP Group. This was reported by RBC.
An investor, the leader in wooden housing construction in the Japanese market, must fulfill three conditions. They were the demands of the Russian authorities to invest $ 150 million by the end of 2026 in the development of timber processing in the Far East; to double timber processing from the current 752 thousand cubic meters to 1.7 million cubic meters in 2026 and increase the production of deep processing products, as well as save jobs.
RFP Group is one of the leaders in the export of timber from Russia to countries of Asia. The company leases plots with a permitted felling of 3.7 million cubic meters per year. Iida Group Holdings holds more than 50 percent of the Japanese market, builds about 50 thousand wooden houses a year and wants to expand.
Sales of Russian timber abroad in the first half of 2021 grew by 20.3 percent. This is how the market reacted to Putin's ban on exporting unprocessed timber from 2022.