With the fast expansion of the pulp industry in China, the country is rapidly growing its need for wood fiber. Domestic supplies have proven inadequate, so the list of supplying countries has expanded from three to eight over the past 12 months.In late 2011, Brazil and Chile sent the first chip vessels to pulp mills in China in over five years. In the past, Japan had been the major destination for Latin American Eucalyptus chips. With Japanese pulp mills paying considerably more than Chinese pulp mills for chips, it is likely that a majority of Eucalyptus chips from Latin America will continue to be shipped to Japan where its chips are more competitively priced with other supplying countries.Wood chips from Latin America still accounted for only three percent of all hardwood chips imported to China in the 2Q/12.During the first six months of 2012, Chile was the largest supplier of hardwood chips to the Japanese pulpmills, followed closely by Australia, according to Wood Resource Quarterly