All stakeholders in the forest and wood-based sector have access to harmonised, up-to-date, accurate, and comprehensive data on the value and volume of wood products globally to inform their policies and operations.
Mission
Sustainable Timber Information Exchange (STIX) provides an open access, dynamic, evolving wood products data platform.
Aims
STIX aims to:
collect, monitor, visualise, disseminate, and exchange data on international trade flows of timber and wood products;
encourage greater accuracy in national and international monitoring on international trade flows and wood products by progressively expanding coverage of reporting countries in the trade data;
introduce additional metrics for monitoring responsible trade; and
develop complementarity globally with other providers of international trade flows of timber and wood products.
About
STIX is a joint initiative of
The International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO)
and the
Global Timber Forum (GTF)
.
This partnership brings together two organisations that seek to promote a responsible trade in wood products and significantly unifies two complementary networks. ITTO is an intergovernmental organization promoting the sustainable management and conservation of tropical forests and the expansion and diversification of international trade in tropical timber from sustainably managed and legally harvested forests. GTF aims to build capabilities of forest and wood-based trade associations globally.
The initial technical work to develop the STIX function from 2017-2019 was funded through the UK Government’s Department for International Trade
Forest Governance Markets and Climate programme
. The development of the current STIX function from 2019 to 2021 is provided through the
FLEGT Independent Market Monitoring (IMM) mechanism.
Scope
STIX currently provides access to data on timber products trade as reported by the statistical agencies of 46 countries including nearly all the world’s largest exporters and importers. Together these countries are estimated to account for at least 90% of the total value of global timber products trade.
Monthly or annual data can be accessed for either the import or export flows of reporting countries.
Data is provided at the highest level of product detail (at HS 8-digit or 10-digit level depending on reporting country).
The start date for all data in the STIX database is January 2015 and the end date is the most recent monthly data published by the statistical agency of the reporting country.
Why STIX?
While there are several on-line sources of timber trade statistics, STIX offers the following unique benefits:
STIX makes the most
recent data
to be readily available and freely accessible in a consistent and immediately useable format.
STIX is unique in allowing trade monitoring as
close to real time
as possible. Monthly data is provided for all trading countries, typically no more than 3 months after trade occurred.
STIX converts all value data into US dollars and Euros using
exchange rates current at the time of the transaction
to address inconsistency in reporting units.
STIX
validates all the quantity data
for EU countries using an algorithm to ensure unit values remain within reasonable bounds with obvious errors identified and removed.
STIX procedures continue to improve the standardising of units to validate routines to
improve the quality and consistency of quantity data
for non-EU countries.
STIX provides an
intuitive and powerful interface
allowing users to access specific data in bulk as far as possible, without limits.
STIX does not assume the user has prior detailed knowledge of the HS system.
STIX allows users to select and aggregate data for
commercially meaningful product groups
.
Data can be easily
downloaded in bulk at the highest level of product detail
(at HS 8-digit or 10-digit level depending on reporting country).
STIX compiles and harmonises data for a large number of reporting countries.
STIX uses
“mirror data” that can be accessed
for those partner countries which do not themselves regularly report trade data.
STIX provides
simple visualisations
allowing users to gain a quick insight into the most recent trade flow trends.
STIX
generates charts
that can be customised and downloaded as png files.
STIX
trade flow data can be explored and downloaded
as a csv file by selecting a combination of one or more reporting countries, partner countries, and product groups.
Public access
Data may be freely extracted from the STIX database and used for any non-commercial application. Data should be attributed to 'The Sustainable Timber Information Exchange sourced from https://stix.global/'.