The Japanese Iida Group Holdings received the right to cut 4 million sq. km of forest in Russia 
One of the leaders of the Japanese housing construction market Iida Group Holdings announced the purchase of 75 percent of the shares of the Russian company Russia Forest Products (RFP), which is one of the largest timber exporters in Russia, reports RIA Novosti.
The decision has already been approved by the Russian government authorities, so there are no obstacles left to complete the deal. As a result of the acquisition, the holding will receive the right to cut down four million square kilometers of forest.
As emphasized in the Iida Group, the acquisition will make it possible to make uninterrupted supply of timber to the Japanese market for the construction of residential buildings, although there is a shortage of goods in the world and its price unstable. The deal will take effect in mid-January 2022. The purchase price is about $ 525 million.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin at the end of November announced a deal with a large Japanese business structure, which will modernize timber processing facilities in the Far East. Apparently, it was about this contract.
In September last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin sharply criticized the situation with the timber industry in the Far East for “a purely archaic and consumerist approach.” He described it with the words “does not climb into any gate” and instructed from January 1, 2022 to prohibit the export of unprocessed or processed only for the type of timber of coniferous and valuable deciduous species.
In the first half of this year, sales of Russian timber for milestone in the first half of 2021 grew by 20.3 percent. In July, the head of RFP Group Konstantin Lashkevich predicted that the impending ban would not solve the problem of barbaric deforestation, but would only exacerbate the situation.