The 15-year fixed mortgage rate also increased, reaching 6.60% from 6.42% a week earlier.

Price for logs exported from Japanese dipped 4%.

The acquisition adds bandsaw, circular saw, industrial knife and saw-shop operations in New Zealand and Australia.

Bell takes the role after serving as corporate finance manager and operations controller.

Owner-built house completions were 23% lower and apartment-building completions 8% higher so far in 2026 compared with the same period last year.

Sinowolf operates two manufacturing sites with 1 billion metres annual edge banding capacity.

Price for MDF panels exported from Turkish dipped 2%.

Price for particleboard exported from Turkish grew only 0.7%.

Price for plywood exported from Russian to Turkey grew 5%.

Wooden starts rose 6.3% to 39,392 units; January–August starts were up 2.2% from a year earlier.

Annual growth outpaced that of Brazil overall industrial producer prices by 0.9 percentage points.

Construction activity reached 50.3 as factory-gate and input price subindexes rose.

Price for wood furniture imported to Japan grew only 0.2%.

Price for wood pellets exported from Vietnamese to Japan rose 3%.

Price for wood chips exported from Vietnamese to Japan increased slightly 0.2%.

Imports of wood pellets to Japan dipped 1.0%.