This paper was presented as a keynote address at the Second International Wood Markets Conference in October 2000 in Melbourne, Australia. The conference brought together forest sector industrialists and policymakers from Oceania, Asia, South and North America. The paper is an extension of two earlier papers presented at the First International Wood Markets Conference held in 1999 in Auckland, New Zealand. 

The present paper examines the possible dramatic change that the European solid wood industry has to go through in order to be competitive. The traditional markets for solid wood products are saturated and future markets are in China, the rest of Asia and Africa. The industry is expected to go through dramatic changes in Europe resulting in a much more concentrated industry in the form of larger enterprises and mills.