Illustrative image (Photo: VNA) HCM City (VNA) – Ensuring timbersupply for domestic manufacturing is a problem in Vietnam as a large amount ofraw timber is exported while many domestic producers lack raw materials.
The local wood industry uses 30 million cubicmetres of raw timber for manufacturing every year and has shipped products tomore than 100 countries and territories. Only two thirds of the timber issourced domestically while the rest has to be imported.
Duong Phuong Thao, Deputy Director of the Import-ExportDepartment under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, said Vietnam exported 7billion USD worth of processed wood in 2016, while global demand stood at 400billion USD for wood products. Vietnam’s wood industry must grow further tocapitalise on huge global demand.
Last year, the country shipped 8 million cubicmetres of wood chip and sawn timber to China. This volume was equivalent to thematerial shortage that domestic small and medium-sized enterprises faced,according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).
Many wood processors and exporters believe that partof the industry’s problems can be blamed on lax coordination among businesses.Timber suppliers don’t coordinate with processors and exporters.
Bui Chinh Nghia, an official from MARD’sDepartment of Processing and Trade for Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Products andSalt Production, said the Government ordered a shutdown of natural forests inJanuary this year. As a result, the volume of legal raw timber will fall byabout 40,000 cubic metres, a problem for the wood industry.
To ensure timber supply for processing andexport, many companies have suggested a ban on the export of raw timber.
Huynh Kim Bau, an assistant to the Director ofSaigon Furniture Co. Ltd, said the Government should levy a tariff of 30-35percent on raw timber exports, the same level as applied by some regionalcountries like Cambodia and Thailand to prevent the loss of domestic materials.Enterprises also need to plant high-quality tree species that grow in a shortperiod of time to meet the industry’s demand.
Nghia said in 2017, the MARD will switch the useof 200,000ha under small tree forests to growing big trees and issuesustainable forest certificate to those land areas. The total area under largetrees and granted sustainable forest certificates is expected to reach500,000ha by 2020, promising a high-quality and certified source of timber forprocessing and exporting.
About 1 – 1.2 million ha of protection forestsin less important areas are set to become commercial forests in the nearfuture, he noted.
Thao added the Vietnamese Government plans tonegotiate with their Lao and Cambodian counterparts to create better conditionsfor Vietnamese firms to source timber from forests in these countries toincrease the supply of raw materials.-VNA
VNA
