It will ease the communication, so I'll speak in English.
Thank you to the Standing Committee for inviting me for this presentation.
I wear four hats. I'm the CEO of the Bureau de promotion des produits du bois du Québec, the Quebec Wood Export Bureau. I'm also the vice-president and founder of Canada Wood, which represents all of the wood industry in Canada for developing the export market. I also represent the Wood Pellet Association of Canada, because we have the pellet manufacturers in Quebec. We joined with the Canadian association last year. Also I'm representing Canada on the UN Committee on Forests and Forest Industry.
I will present some slides, which you have in both French and English, that will help with the comprehension of what I will present to you. I will present some facts, some trends, and a proposed vision for the future under diversification for Canada in the wood industry.
The first slide is our export of wood products. On this slide you can see that the softwood lumber exports to the U.S. have grown in the last five years. You can see the other diversification. We have softwood export overseas. We have done a very good job in the last five years of developing new markets, notably China. You can see the exports to the U.S. and overseas of other wood products, value-added wood products mainly, structural components, flooring, hardwood.
On the next slide you can see something that troubles me a bit. It is the export and import between Canada and the U.S. of value-added prefab houses and structural wood components. We call it the value-added wood industry. Since 2010, our net balance has been negative. We import more wood structures than we export. We have a problem here.
On the next slide you can maybe see one of the reasons: the productivity of the construction industry compared to the industry sector in Canada. Since 1982, the companies sector has grown to 47% and the construction industry has been stable at best, so our productivity is low.
With regard to some trends in the market, there is a trend to construction industrialization going on in the world. There's more prefabrication in the construction technique.
On the next slide, there is also a green building trend. The construction industry wants to lower its energy and carbon footprint in all developing and developed countries.
The next slide is an example of what we did in China. We had a recent big contract in China with housing. We got the contract because we showed them the carbon and energy reduction on the construction of a country house in China versus a modular home done in Quebec and exported to China. The reduction there was very high. Instead of 114 tonnes of carbon, it came to 30 tonnes. We got the contract because of this presentation.
Now on the trends of where our future market is, we know we will soon face the problem in the U.S. with another lumber V, and we have to diversify our markets. We have done a good job in the last five years. The next step is to diversify our products. We need to add value to our wood industry.
In the next slide you can see the evolution of the middle class in the world, which is the key target market for us in terms of construction. In the small circle you have the middle-class volume in 2009, and in the big circle is the middle class in 2013. I don't have to explain to you where our market will be in the next 10 years.
On the next slide you also have the main global market for prefabrication, wood prefab construction. It's the same thing. In 2008 versus 2017, you can see the growth in China is tremendous compared to all of the other markets, U.S., Germany, Sweden, wherever. China will be a big target market for raw material and value-added products.
Now I will speak to the vision.
I think we have to change our mindset to add value to what we produce. That's a Quebec vision for now, with the Quebec government, but I would like it to become a Canadian vision. The goal is we want to export some prefab construction systems for $3 billion. We export now $3 billion of wood, but I want to take $1 billion of that wood and transform that to $3 billion of value-added. That's a government strategy with industry, research centres, and everybody else involved. We are now at the stage of the strategic analysis: our weaknesses, the opportunity, the trends, and some recommendations. That should be finished by the end of this year. We will develop a concerted strategy and implement this strategy. That will need some thinking outside the box. The wood industry has normally produced wood, but we now have to think outside the box and have new allies in our industry.
The important thing you can see on the next slide is the benefit for Canada. What I present on this slide is the benefits for Quebec only, because I'm talking about $3 billion of export from Quebec only. On this schedule, you can see that in 2014, our actual export of structural wood in a prefab-engineered home was roughly at $250 million. That represents about 2,000 jobs, $8.7 million in direct tax to the Quebec government and $4.5 million for the Canadian government. If we achieve the target, and we will look at the column for 2030, that's $3 billion, 25,000 new jobs, $100 million for the Quebec government in tax, and $52 million for the Canadian government in tax, with very little investment. We need to diversify our market and diversify our products.
The last slide is an example of a contract signed in China in November during Mr. Couillard's mission in Shanghai. We signed a contract for $350 million for 500 homes—it's a Quebec company, Panexpert—and this is for the next five years. That's the first result of our efforts now. We had a $20 million contract that is finishing now, also in China, for prefab homes done by AmeriCan Structures, a small company in Quebec. So the result is already there. Just the number that we sold in the fall is more than what we expected for 2018, so it is going faster than I visioned, and I encourage Canada to develop a strategy to diversify not only our markets, but also add value to our wood industry.
Thank you very much.