B.C.’s forest industry is one of the major drivers of the provincial economy, and is the largest forest products industry in North America. The B.C. forest industry generates $33 billion in output and $12.9 billion in GDP. Additionally, the sector contributed $4.1 billion in payments to municipal, provincial and federal governments from forest industry operations. That figure includes $1.4 billion to the federal government, almost $200 million in taxes to municipal governments, and $2.6 billion to the B.C. provincial government in the form of provincial taxes, stumpage, payments to BC Hydro, annual rent, logging taxes and fees. This revenue is key to providing essential public services to British Columbians such as education, health care and infrastructure.

As a major exporter, the forest industry is an important consumer of B.C. transportation infrastructure services such as ports, warehousing, railways, trucking, towing, barging and associated support services, with forest products representing over 21% of all traffic through the Port of Vancouver, 46% of the container traffic through the Port of Prince Rupert, and nearly 11% of total rail traffic across Western Canada.