Timber

The world has approximately 190 million hectares of commercial forests with Asia accounting for 60% and Africa, around 5%. South Africa has about 40% of the continents commercial forests, with 30% being found in West Africa, 20% in East Africa and the balance in Central Africa.

South Africa is the continents largest forest products processing country, with manufactured outputs including structural timber, board, tissue and paper. The South African pulp and paper market is dominated by Sappi Limited and the Mondi Group, which are both vertically integrated with significant forest plantations and manufacturing facilities. South Africa is ranked as one of the world’s top 20 pulp producers.

Sasco has been the leading supplier of weighing equipment to the timber industry in Southern Africa for several decades, and the evolution of weighing technology and the demand for integrated weighing and ERP data solutions has offered Sasco the opportunity to develop products and software solutions for the wider African timber sector including fully unmanned weighbridges, automated weighbridges, and software solutions.