In this paper we prepared electroless Ni-plated wood veneers using two Pa activation methods. One is the traditional Pa colloid activation and the other uses Pa2+ions. SEM-EDS results indicated that the coatings were continuous, uniform and compact with a P content of lower than 4 wt.%. XRD analysis showed that the coatings were crystalline, which was related to the low P content. The plated wood veneers exhibit good electro-conductivity with surface resistivity of lower than 0.3 Ω cm-2and higher electromagnetic shielding effectiveness of over 60 dB in frequencies from 10 MHz to 1.5 GHz.