Brazil's sawn timber to Turkey jumps nearly 20× year-to-date

A corridor that came from nowhere

Turkey barely registered in Brazil's sawn timber export data before 2025. The multi-year average on this corridor sat at roughly 182 tons per year — a niche trickle. Then Brazil shipped 3,699 tons of sawn timber to Turkey in 2025 alone. That is close to 2,000 times the historical baseline in a single year.

Moves of this kind do not happen by coincidence. A new commercial relationship is behind the number: a Turkish importer who opened negotiations, a supply agreement between Brazilian sawmills and Turkish construction firms, or a concentrated tender that generated a single large shipment.

Possible drivers

Turkey runs one of Europe's most active construction sectors by licensed project volume. Demand for sawn timber in structural framing, ceilings and joinery is persistent. Traditional supply came heavily from Russia and Eastern Europe — supply chains that were disrupted by the conflict in Ukraine after February 2022.

With that disruption still reverberating, alternative suppliers gained ground. Brazil, with a well-established pine and eucalyptus forestry base and competitive production costs, may have entered Turkish importers' radars as a partial substitute for European supply. The weak real against the dollar through 2024–2025 reinforced the price competitiveness of Brazilian timber on international markets.

A second factor: reconstruction activity following the February 2023 earthquake in southeastern Turkey continued to drive demand for construction materials well into 2025. Sawn timber is a basic input in that type of rebuilding work.

The broader sector backdrop

Brazil exports sawn timber primarily from pine and eucalyptus plantations, concentrated in Paraná, Santa Catarina and Mato Grosso. The industry has solid installed capacity and has been actively diversifying export destinations in recent years, partly to reduce exposure to US housing-cycle volatility.

Turkey has been growing as a destination across multiple Brazilian export categories beyond timber. Bilateral trade facilitation has accelerated, with sector-specific missions and logistical agreements that lower the operational bar for opening new corridors.

A new entrant that may stay

The 2025 volume is large enough to suggest more than an isolated shipment. 3,699 tons implies repeated operations across the year — an active commercial relationship, not a one-off order.

If Turkey's construction cycle holds and demand for non-European timber supply persists, Brazil has a competitive position to become a recurring supplier on this corridor. The 2026 data will be the test.