HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Exporters of wood products need to havesustainable timber sources and use advanced technologies to reduce labour, atrade show heard in Ho Chi Minh City.

Speaking at the opening of the ‘HCM City Products Week 2022: Handicraft &Home Décor’ expo on July 19, Tran Phu Lu, deputy director of HCM City Trade andInvestment Promotion Centre, said it is vital to build a transparent and legalwood industry to support exports.

This requires the Government and industry business groups to come up withmechanisms to encourage the use of domestically available timber.

“Wood businesses need to ensure the legality of imported timber and payattention to issues related to the safety and health of workers.”

It is vital for them to comply with timber laws at each stage, includingharvesting, importing, purchasing, selling, transporting, processing, andexporting, he warned.

They need to expand cooperation with households allotted forests to tend toensure a sustainable source of raw materials, he added.

Experts said wood businesses should diversify their supply of timber, reducingthe proportion of imports from tropical countries and increasing the proportionfrom low-risk sources.

More than 1,100 handicrafts and wood furniture products from 32 leadingenterprises are on display at the exhibition being held until July 25.

Vietnam has become the world’s sixth largest exporter of wood and woodenproducts with a more than 4% global market share, second largest in Asia, andbiggest in the Southeast Asia, putting it under scrutiny from major tradingpartners.

Besidessourcing locally, Vietnam also imports raw timber, including from tropicalcountries. The volume of tropical wood imported annually is around 1.5 millioncubic metres, or 30% of total imports, mostly from Africa.

According to statistics from the General Department of Customs, despite theimpact of the COVID-19 pandemic, exports of wood and wooden products grew by17.6% last year to 14.12 billion USD.

Vietnamese wood and wood products are present in more than 163 countries.

In the first half of this year, HCM City’s exports were up 13.8% year-on-year./.