Timber & Wood Products

Sarpah introduces East African construction, furniture and hardware-channel buyers to upstream originators of softwood sawn timber, plywood, OSB / chipboard, and unprocessed logs from Russian and Belarusian forestry. The 2018 Kenyan logging moratorium on indigenous forests has structurally widened the import gap; the timber flow addresses construction and furniture-industry demand at scale.

Russian and Belarusian-origin wood is lawful for Kenyan import. Buyers with EU/UK downstream offtake should verify their own export-channel risk: Russian and Belarusian-origin wood is prohibited for import into the EU and UK under Council Regulation 833/2014 / 765/2006. The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) introduces downstream traceability requirements from end 2025 (medium/large operators) and 2026 (SMEs).

The Lines

Product	Origin	Volume
Softwood sawn timber — boards, beams, slats (raw or processed; pine, spruce)	Russia, Belarus	500–10,000 m³/month
Plywood — glued plywood (birch, coniferous)	Russia, Belarus	500–10,000 m³/month
Chipboard / OSB — Oriented Strand Board and chipboard	Russia, Belarus	500–10,000 m³/month

Loadports

Port	Region	Commodities
Vladivostok	Russia, Far East	Sawn timber, plywood, OSB
Novorossiysk	Russia, Black Sea	Plywood, sawn timber
St Petersburg	Russia, Baltic	Plywood, OSB, sawn timber

Delivery Terms

FOB / CFR / CIF Mombasa.

Payment

The buyer's bank issues; the seller's bank advises or — where required — confirms. Sarpah is not on the instrument chain.

Standard: Buyer's bank executes MT103 10–100% prepayment directly to the factory or affiliated company under the SPA.

Trading-house: Irrevocable Confirmed DLC under UCP 600 + MT103.

Multi-shipment SPA: SBLC under URDG 758 / ISP98.

Application — The Kenyan Demand

Kenya banned commercial logging in indigenous forests in 2018 (the moratorium has been periodically reviewed but remains in force in 2026). Domestic plantation softwood (cypress, pine) supplied through Kenya Forest Service concessionaires is structurally undersupplied versus demand from:

Construction industry — formwork, scaffolding, structural framing
Furniture manufacturing — boards and finished sheets
Plywood retail and wholesale — Tile & Carpet, Saj Ceramics, hardware-chain network
Branded distributors — Comply, Timsales, Panesar's, Hwan Sung, Kenwood Timbers

Compliance

For plant-derived timber, full KEPHIS engagement applies:

KEPHIS Import Permit in advance
Phytosanitary Certificate from origin NPPO (Rosselkhoznadzor for Russia, State Inspection Plant Quarantine for Belarus)
Fumigation Certificate at load port (treatment of pinewood for Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, IPPC ISPM-12 stamp for wood-packaging)
KEBS Certificate of Conformity at load port (SGS, Bureau Veritas at Vladivostok / St Petersburg / Novorossiysk)
Certificate of Origin from origin Chamber of Commerce
CITES verification where regulated species are involved (rare for softwood; relevant for tropical hardwood, not in Sarpah scope)
EAC CET: HS 4407.11.00 (sawn softwood — pine, spruce) — 0% (raw materials band). HS 4412.31.00 / 4412.39.00 (plywood) — 25%. HS 4410.11.00 (OSB / particle board) — 25%

Buyer Universe

Hardware chain distributors — Tile & Carpet, Saj Ceramics, Atlas Hardware
Branded timber merchants — Comply, Timsales, Panesar's, Hwan Sung Industries, Kenwood Timbers
Construction majors — major contractors with formwork-volume demand
Furniture manufacturers — including Kenyan and Tanzanian regional players
EAC re-export — Uganda, Rwanda, eastern DRC

Discharge & Logistics

Timber discharge at Mombasa is at general-cargo berths (KPA Berths 1–10). Containerised plywood and OSB through container terminals. Inland transport by road (sawn timber is not typically rail-shipped due to lashing and handling considerations).

Individual product pages with full specification, origin port options, KEPHIS phytosanitary detail and EAC CET treatment are linked from the lines above.