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BRAZZAVILLE (Reuters) - Congo Republic's biggest logging firm has almost halved its workforce because the global recession has cut demand for wood products, the firm said on Tuesday.

Congolese Wood Industries, known by its French acronym CIB, laid off 665 employees from a total of 1,500 in the central African country, where timber is the second biggest industry after oil.

The government has lowered taxes on timber firms in an effort to sustain the industry, but failed to counteract the dropoff in demand and consequently in revenue, the firm said.

"Government measures have been ineffective when ... prices have fallen by more than 50 percent for some products," CIB managing director Christian Schwarz was quoted as saying by local newspaper "Brazzaville Dispatches."

The firm estimated losses for 2009 at 9 billion CFA francs, Schwarz said.

CIB is a subsidiary of privately-owned international logging and wood products group tt Timber, based in Switzerland.