Republic of Congo’ Wood Products Exported to China: Insight of the Characteristics, Trends, and Perspectives for Sustainable Trade

Wood products trade sector remains crucial for many countries’ economies. This is also for the Republic of Congo (RC) where wood is the second most exported natural resource. In this study, we aimed to determine the predominant wood products exported from the RC to China from 2007 to 2019, analyze the trends related to this trade, compare the quantities of wood products exported to China and other destinations, and determine the perspectives for the sustainable trade. The descriptive study using graphs and tables, non-parametric technique Kruskal-Wallis, pairwise comparisons, and SWOT analysis made up the methodological basis for this study. IBM SPSS Statistics 26 software supported data processing. The results showed that logs were mainly exported to China, 92.585% of the three major wood products quantity (Logs, Wet sawnwood, and Dried sawnwood). Volume distributions between products categories differ significantly (Sig. = 0.000 < α = 0.05). Besides, a significant volume (69.32%) was exported to China compared to the other destinations, and volume distributions between different destinations differ significantly (Sig. = 0.000 < α = 0.05). The SWOT analysis describes weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and potential threats related to RC’ wood products trade sector. The prospects for sustainable trade in wood products between the RC and China lie in establishing a good governance in the timber sector, supporting the emergence of domestic operators, and improving the business climate.