Hanoi (VNA) – The Vietnam Administration of Forestry(VNForest) launched an action plan on April 3 for communications to implementthe Voluntary Partnership Agreement on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, andTrade (VPA/FLEGT) between Vietnam and the European Union (EU).

Since Vietnam and the EU concluded negotiationson the VPA/FLEGT in May 2017 and signed the deal in October 2018, the demandfor information on the agreement has surged, with different business groups requiringdifferent information priorities.

The project, funded by the UN’s Food andAgriculture Organisation (FAO)-EU FLEGT Programme, will help Vietnam build andcarry out programmes for disseminating the agreement and the Vietnam TimberLegality Assurance System (VNTLAS) to relevant sides in an appropriate andeffective manner. It will also help the country prepare for realisinginformation disclosure commitments under the VPA/FLEGT.

At the launching workshop in Hanoi, Nguyen TuongVan, Deputy Director of the VNForest division for science-technology andinternational cooperation, said the project’s main activities include assessingrelevant sides’ demand for information about the VPA/FLEGT, assessing the availabilityof the disclosed information, and building strategies and plans forcommunications and information disclosure.

The project will also compile and distribute astandardised set of materials about the agreement and the VNTLAS; provideinformation for the administrations of localities; and popularise informationto domestic wood processors and exporters, FDI firms, and the media, she noted.

Information disclosure is currently facingnumerous problems as there is a lack of sufficient, updated, and accurate data,while information and statistics are still scattered and do not match oneanother across various ministries and sectors.

Deputy General Director of VNForest Pham VanDien said the VPA/FLEGT is legally binding, aiming to improve forest governanceand promote the trade of legal wood and timber products from Vietnam to the EU.It will affect many parties in the country’s wood supply chain, with each ofthem affected at different levels and thus each requiring access to informationrelevant to them about this agreement.

He emphasised the project’s importance asVietnam and the EU are preparing to implement the VPA/FLEGT. It will help solvecommunications and information disclosure issues so as to promote the agreementimplementation.

In 2018, Vietnam earned 9.38 billion USD fromexporting wood and forestry products, making up over 23 percent of theagriculture sector’s export turnover and recording a trade surplus of 7 billionUSD.

The country now has about 4,500 wood processingand forestry businesses, 95 percent of which are private firms.

Vietnamese wood and forestry products have beensold to over 120 nations and territories. The country is the fifth largestexporter of wood and forestry products in the world, second in Asia, and firstin Southeast Asia. –VNA