Development options of composite materials from wood particles in the Republic of Croatia

The Republic of Croatia had almost entirely neglected an important development segment of wood economy, and namely wood composites made from wood particles. In respect to distinctively large feedstock base for the above production (about 3.76 million m3 per year), it is inadmissible that particleboards production in Croatia amounted to about 73 000m3 in 2004, while MDF, OSB and other fibreboards production overall does not exist at all. In the European framework, an increasing trend has been recorded of production of composites from wood particles, and countries make maximum use of comparative advantages of their own forest potential in the production of composite materials from wood particles. Thus, Ireland achieves extremely large production by maximum utilisation of forest biomass despite its rather small forest potential. Croatian production is only 0.16%of European production, and Croatian export is only 0.22%of European export. According to forest area per capita, Croatia is highly ranked in Europe, but according to production of composites from wood particles and production volume per capita it is ranked among the most underdeveloped European countries. Consumption is 3.4 times higher than production, so our import of wood composites made from wood particles amounts to as much as 213 000 m3. According to FAO forecasts, no economy measures are expected in Croatia for the development of wood material, which could be produced with the application of modern sophisticated technologies. In future, Croatia is seen as a country that will exclusively export wood as raw material.