Europe Recovers as Asian Plywood Supply Tightens — June 2026

Europe's construction sector is set to grow again in 2026, and the timing matters for anyone buying plywood this summer. After a 1.5% contraction in 2024 and a flat 2025, EU construction output is forecast to rise 1.5% this year, according to ING's 2026 construction outlook. New-dwelling permits were already running about 26% above year-earlier levels by September 2025, per the European Commission's Build Up tracker.

That demand recovery is arriving just as the supply side firms. Framing lumber sat near multi-month highs in mid-June. Container freight is climbing into an early peak season, and Vietnamese mills are shipping at a record clip. For procurement teams the read is simple: landed costs look more likely to rise than fall through the third quarter.

Price and Supply Snapshot

Lumber told the clearest story this month. CME random-length futures reached about $598 per thousand board feet on 11 June, the highest since April, after trading near $609 earlier in the month, Trading Economics data show. The NAHB framing lumber series was up 6.8% year over year as of 5 June, even with prices roughly flat from a month earlier.

Supply is the driver. US domestic production has not expanded fast enough to replace the drop in Canadian imports that followed last year's tariff increases, leaving the market tight. Gordian's quarterly tracker put lumber costs up 5.11% in the second quarter, and up 4.21% on the year. Tight softwood pricing tends to pull structural panel and plywood quotes along with it.

Freight Lifts the Landed-Cost Math

Ocean freight is adding to the bill. Drewry's World Container Index rose 3% to $3,549 per 40ft box in the week to 11 June, with the Shanghai to Rotterdam leg up 5% to $3,768. Carriers are pressing harder still. MSC set general rate increases of $6,000 per 40ft on Asia to North Europe from 15 June, while CMA CGM and ONE added peak-season surcharges on the same date.

Drewry attributes the move to a peak season that began earlier than usual, with cargo pulled forward ahead of a 1 July bunker adjustment, a pattern it first flagged when rates jumped during an early peak season two weeks ago. The index provider expects rates to keep climbing. Buyers planning third-quarter arrivals should budget for that rather than against it.

Demand: Europe Steadies, US Mixed

The European picture is the brighter one. Beyond the headline output forecast, Bain & Company flagged early but broadening signs of recovery across the bloc, supported by infrastructure spending and public investment. A firmer European building pipeline is a tailwind for film-faced and formwork panels into the back half of the year.

North America is more uneven. US housing starts ran at a 1.465 million annual pace in April, up 4.6% on the year but down 2.8% from March, the Census Bureau reported. Single-family starts fell 9% from the prior month to 930,000. The May reading lands on 16 June and will show buyers whether spring momentum held.

Trade and Policy: Vietnam Ships Records, US Duties Loom

Vietnam's export engine kept running. The country's wood and forest-product exports hit a record of more than $17 billion in 2025, and the first quarter of 2026 added about $3.03 billion, official figures show. US customs data captured the surge too, with hardwood plywood import volumes up sharply year to date through May. Indonesia, by contrast, saw its domestic plywood price index slip in early 2026 as export orders softened, per ChemAnalyst pricing data.

The policy overhang is the US antidumping and countervailing case on hardwood and decorative plywood from China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Commerce set a preliminary Vietnam antidumping rate of 196.14% in early 2026, with final determinations scheduled for mid-July, according to trade-law filings. From a Vietnamese mill vantage point, we read that deadline less as a cliff than as a sorting line: the case targets hardwood and decorative plywood, a different product class from the formwork and film-faced panels most construction buyers source from Vietnam.

Outlook

The near-term setup favors whoever already holds supply. Lumber is tight, freight is rising, and both Drewry and ING point to firmer conditions ahead rather than relief. Europe's demand recovery, modest as it is, gives that firmness somewhere to land. Our read is that the first-quarter freight softening some buyers hoped for has reversed, and the window to lock summer orders at current terms is narrowing.

For purchasing managers the practical takeaway is timing. With raw-material and shipping costs both pointed upward into the third quarter, securing formwork and film-faced volumes sooner carries less risk than waiting for a pullback the data does not yet support.

About Vinawood

Vinawood is a Vietnamese plywood manufacturer established in 1992, shipping more than 5,000 containers a year to 55+ countries. Our formwork and film-faced ranges carry CE (EN 13986), FSC-COC, and EPA TSCA Title VI documentation, and every sheet is inspected before it leaves the line. For current availability on film-faced plywood and formwork panels, contact our team for a quote.