The 1993-94 Annual Review and Assessment of the World Tropical Timber Situation reports that declining global production and imports have increased the chasm between exports and imports to over 5.8 million metres cube. Resource scarce, tropical timber exporting countries like India and Thailand have now become net importers. With Asian tropical countries axing fewer logs, Africa and Latin America are emerging as important markets for tropical timber, both for Europe and Asian giants like Japan, China and Korea. The report says that these trends are likely to continue to the turn of this century and beyond, as'several. Asian producers plan to stabilise or further decrease log production, putting tremendous pressure on tropical forests in Africa and Latin America.