1. 8.2 JFSQ – Quality of the results
Forestry Working Group, February 2018
Rajmund Laczkó Environmental statistics and accounts; Sustainable development

2. Production – PRODCOM < JFSQ

3. Production – PRODCOM >= JFSQ

4. Production – PRODCOM/JFSQ/CEPI

5. Unit price check Export and import unit prices Euro_mt and euro_m3
Last 10 years
Changes in %
Product groups are composed of changing ratios of many products
Absolute values might explain the differences in %

6. 7.4 dissolving grades

7. Reporting
Also questionnable results for: 4_1 wood pellets 4_2 other agglomerates (majority of the countries reporting) 7_1 mechanical wood pulp 7_2 semi-chemical wood pulp 7_3_1 sulphate unbleached 7_3_3 sulphite unbleached 8 other pulp (minority of the countries reporting)

8. Conclusions
1) Errors were found in the JFSQ time series for charcoal, which the countries are asked to correct. 2) For some products examined, the JFSQ EU-28 time series of production are found to be realistic compared to the PRODCOM time series: sawnwood, particle board including OSB, OSB until 2013, hardboard and tropical plywood. 3) PRODCOM time series were found to be more realistic for tropical sawnwood, OSB after 2013, dissolving grades wood pulp, newsprint, 3 types of graphic papers and 2 types of packaging materials. 4) The JFSQ is losing accuracy and relevance for products where PRODCOM shows much higher EU-28 estimates. This is probably due to the missing national confidential data that Eurostat's PRODCOM unit receives, does not publish, but uses for its EU-28 estimates by "rounding".

9. Possible solutions
1) For selected products where PRODCOM shows much higher EU-28 estimates, it could be reasonable to end the effort of JFSQ reporting and use the (few) available PRODCOM data for Member States, along with a "c" flag for countries where data are confidential. 2) Other products could be simplified by collapsing the hierarchy of the JFSQ or by combining products that are also together in PRODCOM, such as Reducing the 4 types of chemical pulp to 2 Combining mechanical and semi-chemical wood pulp with pulp from fibres other than wood (the latter with very low volumes in the JFSQ)

10. Questions for the delegates
1) Do you agree that some kind of simplification of the production part of the JFSQ in worksheet JQ1 could be part of a solution for the quality of the annual returns? 2) Do you agree that aligning JFSQ products with PRODCOM as much as possible would be another good solution? 3) As part of a possible simplification, do you think it might be a solution to introduce a simplified version of the JQ1 worksheet that all countries must fill in, while other countries with more detailed data on the lower-level products could fill in a more detailed worksheet similar to the current one? If this were done, there could also be different publication dates, an early one for the simplified data and a later one, or overall less frequent publication, for the detailed data? 4) Should products unique to the JFSQ be kept in the questionnaire, such as recovered fibre pulp and recovered paper? 5) Should new products be introduced into the questionnaire, such as recovered wood (post-consumer wood), as discussed at the 2016 meeting of the Working Group?

11. Thank you for your attention!