Analysis of the Trade Network of Global Wood Forest Products and its Evolution from 1995 to 2020

Abstract

Global trade of wood forest products is a complex system, and its flow between trading countries forms a trade network of wood forest products. The transmission efficiency of the trade network largely depends on its network structure. The commonly used method in recent years to analyze the network structure is complex network analysis. Therefore, this study used the complex network method, through using kernel density curves every 5 years to show distribution changes of complex network indictors to study the evolution of the trade network of global trade of wood forest products, based on trade data from 1995 to 2020. The results show that the trade relationship between countries is deepening. Compared with resource-based wood forest products, the trade of deeply processed wood forest products is larger in scale, more complex in structure, and more closely linked. The core countries in global wood forest products trade mainly comprise North American and European countries, while several developing countries in Asia with abundant forest and labor endowments are gradually joining the core tier and jointly control the trade market. We also revealed the intervention of world forestry development goals and national forestry policies on changes to trade structure and trade groups.