That is according to the latest ABARES Agricultural Commodities Report, published yesterday, which revealed that the gross value of forestry (GVP) production is expected to reach $2.23 billion in 2026-27 — a 3 per cent nominal increase or a 1 per cent real increase. And over the medium term, the GVP is projected to drop back $2.1 billion, with no material growth expected until at least 2030-31.

By the numbers, total gross value production in forests has dropped by 36 per cent over the past eight years — from about $3.4 billion in 2017-18 — with softwood relatively steady at about $1.5 billion, hardwood plantations flatlining at $0.5 billion and native forest continuing what is now a 20-year decline.

According to Diana Hallam, CEO of the Australian Forest Products Association, whilst the topline figures point to the vital role of sustainable forestry in producing essential products, the report also identified serious challenges and headwinds for the sector.

“Some of these challenges and risks include high manufacturing and energy costs, greater use of structural steel in residential and mid-rise construction, as well as a growing amount of imported timber products of varying quality flooding the Australian marketplace, including from China,” she said.

Hallam said the new estimates also reaffirmed the importance of aligning the government’s policy with Australia’s Timber Fibre Strategy, which outlines opportunities for the industry to make a greater contribution to national goals in carbon, innovation, and housing construction.

Softwood up, hardwood down, native at historic lows

The value of softwood plantation production is forecast to increase slightly in 2026-27, driven by short-term movements in detached housing demand. But ABARES warns that a gradual shift toward higher-density dwellings is expected to temper timber demand over the medium term, whilst projected increases in softwood log availability will ease unit prices.

Hardwood plantation production, however, is heading the other way.

And that’s because ongoing shifts in global paper markets are placing downward pressure on woodchip demand, whilst Vietnam’s growing share of global trade — combined with projected exchange rate changes — is continuing to erode Australia’s competitiveness overseas. ABARES expects Australian hardwood woodchip exports to settle at similar volumes but lower unit prices, with Australia holding a smaller, more specialised role in the market.

And then there is native forestry, where production has now fallen to historically low levels following 20 years of contraction driven by the transfer of multiple-use public native forests to nature conservation reserves and increased harvest restrictions.

A $570 million downward revision

ABARES has slashed its forestry forecast by more than $570 million — a 21 per cent revision from its December report — with exports the major driver of the writedown, down more than $619 million amid weaker production and prices.

It comes days after this masthead reported on a new white paper from the Rozetta Institute arguing that Australia needs a national roadmap to boost forest productivity and encourage new capital into the market.

On Friday, Wood Central spoke to the white paper’s lead author, Steve Walker, Principal of Terrafolia Advisory, and co-author Dr Lyndall Bull, who revealed that Australian plantations produce just 15 to 18 cubic metres per hectare per year against international benchmarks of 30 to 50.

And on Monday, Walker went further, telling Wood Central the sector’s decades-long focus on cost discipline had come at the expense of genuine value creation. “Lifting productivity on the land already planted is the fastest and most scalable opportunity,” Walker said. “International benchmarks in Brazil, India, Vietnam and China demonstrate that 30 to 50 cubic metres per hectare per year is achievable using proven technologies already available.”

“If we can do this, we can ultimately strengthen our capacity to produce more competitive engineered wood products like LVL and other EWPs,” he said, adding that the downstream benefits could add tens of millions of dollars to regional communities.

• For more information, including the ABARES full March 2026 Agricultural Commodities Report, visit the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

That is, according to new ABS data analysed by IndustryEdge, which revealed that Australia’s imports of prefabricated and modular buildings have lifted to a record $326.4 million for the year to November 2025, a staggering 51.1% uptake on the last 12 months with modular steel ($75.8 million, up 246.8%) and prefabricated steel and other non-wood products ($227.3 million, up 28.9%) making up more than 92% of imports.

The data comes amid growing public and political interest in prefabricated and modular construction as a potential lever for addressing Australia’s housing supply shortfall. Yesterday, Wood Central reported that a major Australian developer is now partnering with a major Chinese construction firm to bring prefab expertise to address Sydney’s housing crisis, whilst the AustChina Institute is looking to establish a trade corridor for prefab to help close the gap.

But how much of these building materials are going into housing?

The ABS data paints a more nuanced picture of what is actually arriving at ports. The figures do not distinguish between industrial and commercial buildings and dwellings, making it difficult to determine how much of the record growth is being driven by residential demand. The formal product descriptors are published on the Border Force website under the 9406 Prefabricated Buildings classifications, with longer versions contained in the monthly ABS data series.

A closer look at the largest import category — 9406.90.00.04, covering steel and other non-wood prefabricated buildings — tells the story.

At $227.3 million, it accounts for nearly 70% of the total, and it is made up almost entirely of commercial and industrial products. The category contains no information on the value of dwelling imports. What it does list is cold rooms, spray booths, operating theatres, carports, greenhouses, interpreter booths, pod offices, observatory domes, vaults, laundries, showers, kitchens, bathrooms, and workshops — a long way from the housing conversation that has dominated the prefab narrative in recent months.

Wooden prefab buildings make up just 7.1% of all imports by value

Inevitably, most interest in the timber sector will centre on imports of prefabricated wooden buildings. The value here lifted $5.5 million, or 31.0%, to $23.3 million (FOB) over the year to November 2025. It’s a strong growth rate off a modest base — wooden prefab buildings still account for just 7.1% of total prefabricated building imports by value. Imports are spread across the states, reasonably consistent with population size.

On the supply side, mainland China accounted for 66.1% of total prefabricated building imports, or $215.9 million (FOB), for the year to November 2025. The picture shifts when specifically isolating the wooden prefab. China supplied 43.0% of imported wooden prefabricated buildings by value, with Estonia contributing 20.7% and Latvia 9.5% — a reflection of the Baltic states’ established expertise in timber construction and their growing footprint in the Australian market.

That Baltic connection is also worth watching. European timber producers have been actively diversifying their export markets since EU sanctions on Russian and Belarusian timber disrupted established supply chains from 2022. As Wood Central has reported, the reshaping of global timber trade flows has opened new corridors — and Australia’s wooden prefab import profile increasingly appears to reflect that shift.

There is no question that political and commercial interest in prefab housing is growing. But the import data suggests the reality has not yet caught up with the ambition. The bulk of Australia’s record $326.4 million in prefab imports is going into commercial and industrial applications, and for the timber sector, wooden prefab remains a small but growing corner of the market at $23.3 million a year.

The gap between where the conversation is and where the numbers are remains significant.

That is according to Metsä Wood, which confirmed its Kerto LVL was used for the entire load-bearing structure of the Xylino complex in Almere — named after the Greek word for wood — a project developed by housing corporation De Alliantie and constructor Koopmans Bouwgroep, with all modules manufactured off-site by geWOONhout.

The building delivers a mix of mid-market rental units, social housing apartments and ground-level residences, supported by a semi-underground parking structure and a shared car-free courtyard. It comes as the EU pours money into industrialised timber construction to tackle chronic housing shortages across the continent.

Wood Central understands each module arrived on site with plumbing, electrical and ventilation already installed, and that the structural system — four corner columns with integrated floor and roof elements — locks together without the need for a concrete core, a significant departure from conventional multi-storey residential construction.

And whilst CLT is the more common choice in mass timber construction, geWOONhout went with Kerto LVL — a product manufactured from 3-millimetre-thick veneers glued together, either uniformly or with 20 per cent laid crosswise depending on application — which Metsä Wood says is up to 50 per cent more resource-efficient than comparable mass timber products whilst delivering equivalent structural performance.

Sprint construction: four apartments a day

Installation followed what Metsä Wood called a sprint-based approach — ditching the traditional linear schedule in favour of rapid, concentrated bursts of activity — with teams placing eight to twelve modules per day and assembling three to four apartments simultaneously.

“This system is ready to be repeated,” according to Bas Broeke, Project Manager at Koopmans Bouwgroep. “The way it works here means we can apply it in many more places.”

CNC machining held tolerances to within 0.5 millimetres across all components, and every part in the system has a digital twin accessible via a QR code — containing dimensions, specifications, and end-of-life instructions that support both manufacturing consistency today and disassembly in the future.

The project also achieves R120 fire classification, providing 120 minutes of structural resistance as required for Dutch buildings exceeding 13 metres in height, whilst acoustic performance is delivered through olivine aggregate added to the floors — a mineral that also captures CO₂ — combined with acoustic decouplers between modules to prevent sound transmission.

And the environmental credentials extend far beyond the structure, with lighter foundations reducing transport emissions, PEFC-certified wood sourced throughout demonstrating responsible sourcing, and all site operations powered by solar. The completed buildings even feature solar panels, high-performance insulation and rainwater harvesting, whilst modules are designed from the outset for disassembly and material recovery. Low-carbon concrete was deployed only for the semi-underground parking facility.

Speaking about the project, Aafke Van der Werf, Director of geWOONhout — which manufactured all 436 modules — said the result speaks for itself. “The best thing about Xylino is that you can’t tell from the outside that it was built using industrialised methods,” she said. “To me, that proves that architectural freedom and modular construction can go hand in hand.”

The review, announced by the International Trade Administration as part of a broader initiation notice covering multiple trade orders, names Hunchun Xingjia Wooden Flooring Inc. and Zhejiang Longsen Lumbering Co., Ltd. as companies subject to examination.

Under the agency’s process, respondent selection may be limited to a subset of firms, determined either from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) import data or from quantity‑and‑value questionnaires issued to exporters. The CBP data or questionnaire responses will be placed on the record within 5 days of the notice’s publication, and the Commerce Department aims to select respondents within 35 days. Interested parties will have seven days to comment once the data are posted, followed by a five‑day window for rebuttal submissions.

The Department also noted that reviews may be rescinded where there are no suspended entries for a company or where entries were not made under the firm’s specific case number. Producers or exporters listed in the initiation notice may notify Commerce within 30 days if they had no exports, sales, or entries during the period of review. In addition, parties that requested a review may withdraw their request within 90 days of publication.

Draft maps released yesterday outline the vision for the remaining 23 of 50 “Train and Tram Zone Activity Centres,” described by the government as “vibrant places where people access public transport, shop, work, connect with family and friends, as well as live.”

According to Victorian Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny, the government wanted to make it “easier and fairer” for more Victorians to live in suburbs of their choosing: “We’re releasing them in these areas because they’re really well connected to public transport, to infrastructure, to jobs and services, and we also know they’re areas where too many Victorians have been priced out,” she said.

A Train and Tram Zone Activity Centre in Caulfield would have the least restrictive height restrictions, allowing up to 20 storeys near Caulfield Racecourse and Monash University.

Height restrictions vary from four to 16 storeys in other suburbs near stations in Windsor, Blackburn and Springvale, while a five-kilometre zone is outlined between Malvern and South Yarra stations. Buildings near Chapel Street in Prahran could also soar to what heights? 16 storeys.

And in Toorak and Armadale, developments up to 10 storeys high are slated.

“This is about putting more homes where it makes sense, so higher buildings in the cores in the centres, and then a more gradual density the further out you move from those cores,” Kilkenny said. “What we’ve been seeing is our growth suburbs carrying the burden of more homes.

“Places like Melton and Wyndham have grown over the last 30 years by more than 400 per cent, whereas places like Booronarra Bayside, growing roughly around 24 to 28 per cent.”

Locals are invited to provide feedback on the draft plans over the next month via the Engage Victoria website, with submissions due by March 22. “Have a look at the maps, engage with us, consult with us, and provide feedback on these draft maps, and help us show where more homes can go over the next couple of decades, as we plan for the future,” Kilkenny said.

Melbourne is the sweet spot for Australia’s most ambitious build-to-rent developer

Last year, Rory Hunter, CEO of MODEL, revealed that Melbourne’s inner north was ideally placed to build mid-rise and high-rise build-to-rent towers out of cross-laminated timber.

Addressing 200 architects, engineers, developers and timber professionals at Timber Construct – Australia’s largest timber in construction conference, Hunter said MODEL, which is now working on two projects in Abbotsford, is well-positioned to succeed where traditional or legacy developers have not:

“We’re designing for a very different future. Buildings must be more resilient, and timber is a key part of that,” Hunter said from the sidelines. “As the energy transition and broader decarbonisation accelerate, assets that haven’t considered operational and embodied carbon from the start risk becoming stranded. Timber aligns with our values and mission, and it’s what the market will demand.”

Responding to questions from Georgie Coutsodimitropoulos, NeXTimber by Timberlink’s Marketing and Brand Manager, Hunter said that combining timber and Passivhaus standards can materially lift housing quality across Australia.

“Shockingly, the majority of Australian homes fall outside the World Health Organisation’s recommended temperature and humidity ranges, and the situation is worse in the rental sector,” he said. “Around 80% of rental homes are either too cold and damp in winter or too hot in summer, creating real health risks for tenants.”

• To learn more about Hunter’s bid to build more build-to-rent towers out of cross-laminated timber, click here for Wood Central’s exclusive coverage from Timber Construct.

Last year, Wood Central spoke exclusively with Gianluigi Traetta and Florian Hitthaler of RubnerHolzbau Srl, one of Europe’s largest mass‑timber fabricators, who said the run‑up to the Games had triggered a wave of vertical extensions across Milan and surrounding regions, as building owners tapped lightweight engineered‑timber systems to expand accommodation capacity.

“Timber is the perfect solution for these projects,” Traetta said, noting that mass‑timber technologies allow developers to add new levels to existing buildings without major structural reinforcement:

It comes after Wood Central revealed last month that Milan’s Athletes’ Village — the only permanent venue built for the Games — was delivered 30 days ahead of schedule using factory‑made modular units built around mass‑timber elements. Whilst at the same time, PEFC International on Monday revealed that large volumes of PEFC-certified local timber have been used in the retrofit of the Fabio Canal Cross-Country Ski Stadium, which will host the cross-country skiing.

• To learn more about the push to use vertical extensions, click here for Wood Central’s from last year.

Designed by Jackson Clements Burrows, the architect behind T3 Collingwood and several major Monash buildings, the 7,500‑square‑metre development will provide single en-suite rooms, supported by communal kitchens, winter gardens, study zones, lounges, and landscaped outdoor areas. Additional facilities will include music and gaming rooms, mobility-accessible units, a wellness hub, and a sports court available to all Monash Residential Services residents.

The appointment follows Monash’s ground‑breaking ceremony in August 2025, where Vice‑Chancellor and President Professor Sharon Pickering joined Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs and Assistant Minister for International Education Julian Hill MP to turn the first sod on the project.

At the time, Professor Pickering said the new residence is critical to the student experience and campus life: “The transformational experience we offer students at Monash recognises that our students come to university for more than their degrees,” she said. “This new residence will help foster community, connection and belonging.”

Meanwhile, Assistant Minister Hill said high-quality accommodation is essential for maintaining Australia’s position as a leading global education destination. “We want Australia to remain a premium, sought-after destination for higher education across the globe, and good quality accommodation is an essential part of this.”

In recent years, Monash has emerged as one of Australia’s earliest adopters of mass timber, with the new building following the award-winning Gillies Hall and Peninsula Student Accommodation projects, both delivered in 2019. Gillies Hall, one of the largest Passive House-certified buildings in the southern hemisphere, was the subject of a 2021 research paper at the World Conference on Timber Engineering and remains a benchmark for low-carbon student housing.

Wood Central understands that the new campus building is expected to open mid next year, with the project one of several major capital works underway across the Clayton campus as Monash continues to implement its long-term masterplan.

Wood Central can reveal that the proposal is being championed by Shigeru Ban, the Pritzker Prize‑winning architect renowned for pioneering construction systems using cardboard, bamboo, and plywood, who said he hopes the initiative will “give people a reason to look at the reality of the disaster area.”

The decision comes after Sou Fujimoto, the lead architect responsible for the ring, warned that up to 70% of the timber used in the world’s largest architecturally designed wooden structure was at risk of being chipped and sold as firewood.

“Unfortunately, now, almost a decision by the political people [has been made about] keeping only 10%, 200 metres, and then all the rest will be demolished,” Fujimoto said, adding that “maybe 20% could be carefully dismantled and then transported to other places for a second life.” A point that is fully supported by Ban. “If the ring is just going to be disposed of as wood chips,” he said, “it’s better to put it to effective use in a disaster area. It also creates conversation.”

It comes as crews began dismantling the ring in full last month, which, during the Expo, used more than 27,000 cubic metres of timber, including 70% sourced from Japanese cedar and hinoki, and the remainder from superstrong European red cedar. Engineered to withstand earthquakes, the ring was assembled using Nuki joints, a traditional Japanese joinery method requiring no nails or screws, allowing the timber to be dismantled and reassembled with minimal damage.

And as for the housing, Suzu officials estimate that about 65 square metres of timber (20 cubic metres) will be used in each of the 50‑plus units. “We want it to carry on the Expo legacy and become a symbolic presence when our recovery is complete,” a Suzu city official told Japanese media today.

The new plan continues Ban’s strong ties with Suzu. In the weeks after the earthquake, he donated materials used to construct his paper‑tube partition system to help secure privacy in evacuation centres, and also designed a series of timber-based multi‑storey emergency housing systems to improve living conditions for displaced residents.

• To learn more about the Grand Ring, which in March was awarded as the world record as the world’s largest wooden architectural structure by the Gusiness Book of Records, click here for Wood Central’s special feature. And to learn why engineers are now developing new shock absorbers that will help buildings bounce back faster from quakes, click here for Wood Central’s special feature.

Trump signed the order overnight, with officials arguing it will make housing more affordable by curbing Wall Street activity in the single‑family market. At the same time, the administration also revealed that the new measures are designed to prevent large investors from outbidding individual families for entry‑level homes.

“My Administration will take decisive action to stop Wall Street from treating America’s neighbourhoods like a trading floor and empower American families to own their homes,” the order reads. “Buying and owning a home has long been considered the pinnacle of the American dream and a way for families to invest and build lifetime wealth.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent now has 30 days to define “large institutional investor” and “single‑family home,” which will determine the scope of the restrictions. The administration must also prepare legislative recommendations to codify the ban through Congress.

Wood Central understands that the carve‑out is significant, with the market for build-to-rent projects growing exponentially in the south. In recent times, the asset class has become a major growth area for mass timber and lightweight timber construction, with large-scale developers like Sumitomo turning to prefabricated systems to deliver new housing projects at speed.

“The order includes a narrow but explicit carve-out for build-to-rent communities that are planned, permitted, financed and constructed as rental developments,” Housing Wire reports. “That language provides clarity for purpose-built BTR developers, while appearing to exclude bulk purchases of homes within for-sale subdivisions — a strategy long used by both homebuilders and single-family rental operators.”

Wood Central understands that regulators have also been pulled into the process, with the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to examine whether large investors have reduced competition in local housing markets, whilst the Department of Housing and Urban Development will work to establish a registry of single‑family rental owners participating in federal housing programs.

According to the White House, the new order is part of a new push to tackle affordability, with Trump directing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase US$200 billion in mortgage‑backed securities to help lower borrowing costs. Officials said additional housing measures will be outlined in the coming weeks.

As it stands, large institutional investors own just 2% to 3% of the U.S. housing market, the Wall Street Journal reports, a small but growing footprint that has expanded in the aftermath of the 2007–08 subprime crisis. Some developers, however, warn that the restrictions could have unintended consequences. “Their intention may be good, ultimately, any regulation on the single-family rental industry is only going to be deleterious to what he’s trying to do,” Florida build‑to‑rent developer Adam Wolfson told the Wall Street Journal.

Trump said the order is necessary to “preserve the supply of single‑family homes for American families,” before adding that “people live in homes, not corporations,” and warning that neighbourhoods once dominated by middle‑class families are increasingly being taken away by “faraway corporate interests.”

The complex, delivered 30 days ahead of schedule, brings together cross‑laminated timber panels, glulam beams, and low‑embodied‑carbon facades across residential and communal buildings. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)—responsible for New York City’s Moynihan Connector—the “self‑sustaining neighbourhood” is fully kitted out with solar panels, roof gardens, and infrastructure designed for rapid conversion after the Olympics.

And like the Paris Athletes Village – occupied by 14,000 athletes during last year’s Summer Olympics – SOM is looking beyond the thousands of athletes occupying the village during the games: “Rather than ceasing to be of use after the Olympics, the Porta Romana Olympic Village will ultimately become a vibrant, self‑sustaining neighbourhood built around the principles of social equity, environmental commitment, wellness, and inclusivity,” said Colin Koop, a partner at SOM. “The village adopts the rhythm of the area’s streetscape, creating a porous urban block with a variety of public spaces and communal anchors that will enhance Milan’s vibrant tapestry of ground‑floor experiences.”

“We were compelled by the opportunity to design a project that is purpose-built for one usage, and that then will transform for another permanent purpose – and to do so in the most sustainable and urbanistically responsible way possible,” Koop said, adding that the athletes’ village is located on a former railyard and the studio drew inspiration from the area’s industrial past when designing the new buildings.

Olympic organisers are now looking to Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo for guidance.

Wood Central understands that SOM’s design included retrofitting two historic structures on site and constructing six timber buildings to accommodate athletes during the games. After the games, these buildings will transition into student and affordable housing. Predominantly built from mass timber in a linear bar format with terraces, the buildings draw inspiration from historic Milanese architecture while utilising contemporary materials, such as low-embodied-carbon facades.

Led by developer COIMA, the village is creating a sustainable urban community with a range of green credentials. According to Manfredi Catella, COIMA founder and CEO,“The 2026 Olympic Village will represent a new urban laboratory for Milan, the first to be designed and built in its future configuration with spaces, functions, and materials already designed for their conversion, meeting NZEB principles.”

And once the games are over, the village will be turned into Italy’s largest affordable student housing complex, comprising 1,700 beds, ready in time for the 2026/27 academic year: “The Olympic Village sets a new benchmark for sustainability – not just in terms of its low environmental impact but for its enduring legacy after the Games, when it will provide high-quality, affordable housing for students,” Catella said.