WATERVILLE (AP) – Canada’s strong dollar is helping Maine’s lumber industry, as Canadian-made products become more expensive compared to goods from American mills, business and state officials say.

Canadian forest-products manufacturers have long benefited from a stronger American dollar. But a five-year decline in the value of U.S. currency has evened the field with Canadian producers.

“It has helped manufacturers tremendously,” said Steve Banahan, sales manager at Moose River Lumber Co. Inc. in Jackman, where up to 85 workers prepare spruce and fir, used largely for framing houses. “My biggest competition comes from the Maritimes and Quebec. Those guys’ break-even has changed dramatically.”

Banahan said that as Canadian manufacturers “throttle back” on production, Moose River and other Maine companies get better prices for their products. That helps those companies as they try to recover from the weakened American housing market.

Peter Lammert of the Maine Forest Service said there’s another benefit: Canadian subsidies of its sawmills have been neutralized. Lammert said the new exchange rate will tilt the American advantage further.

“Now that we’re on par, that will make it harder for them to pick up saw logs and haul them back to Canada,” he said.

Robbins Lumber Inc.’s vice president, Jimmy Rollins II, said the Searsmont company hasn’t seen positive effects of the exchange rate yet.

“Right now it’s such a hard market, we’re not seeing any of those effects yet,” he said.

Moose River’s Banahan said Canadians can now come to Maine and buy timber with their stronger dollar. “We now have Canadian companies coming down and outbidding us for logs,” Banahan said. “It just makes the log supply very, very tight.”