ECUADOR - With a growth of 133.6 percent in 2018, Ecuador is positioned as an attractive external market for particleboard (PB / MDP) manufacturers in the region, particularly in Brazil and Chile.

Over the course of a year, Ecuador more than doubled the particleboard (PB / MDP) imported value, going from USD 7.5 million in 2017 to USD 17.5 million in 2018.

This growth substantially favored the leading supplier countries: Brazil and Chile. The main supplier country, Brazil, recorded in 2018 shipments for USD 10.1 million, which meant a marked growth of 196.3 percent compared to USD 3.4 million reached in 2017. Chile also grew substantially when it totaled in 2018 shipments of PB / MDP to Ecuador for USD 5.9 million, almost doubling the figure achieved in 2017, which stood at USD 3 million, this is equivalent to a growth of 93.9 percent.

In this scenario, the largest particleboard manufacturer in the Andean region, Novopan del Ecuador, in 2018 also became the largest particleboard importing company in Ecuador. Novopan, with MDP board production plant in Quito, Ecuador, imported particleboard boards for USD 6.4 million, an increase of 1,284.9 percent in the face of imports of USD 466 thousand in 2017. With this performance Novopan reached a share of the total imported of 36.8 percent, which is equivalent to an increase of 30.5 percentage points compared to 2017 (6.2%).

It is followed by Masisa Ecuador with USD 5.8 million, and an increase of 57.6% in 2017 and a share of 33.1% over the total imported in 2018 (2017: 46.1%). Imporquivi, with a growth of 137.3%, was the third largest importing company with USD 1.4 million (2017: USD 587 thousand).