HÀ NỘI – Việt Nam estimated to gain US$7.3 billion from the export value of wood and wooden products this year, a slight increase of 1 per cent year on year, reported the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s General Department of Forestry.

Nguyễn Bá Ngãi, deputy director of the general department, said this year, export value of forest products gained growth of 5-10 per cent depending on different products but the export value of wood and wooden products rose by 1 per cent against last year, reported Hải Quan (Customs) newspaper.

The slight growth was due to strong reduction in the export value of wooden chips compared with last year, or 61 per cent of the export value of wooden chips in 2015, he said.

Decrease in exports of wooden chips this year was due to a fall in demand for this product on the world market, especially China, said Ngãi, adding that Vietnamese wooden chip products have faced competition with similar products from other countries such as Thailand, Australia and some African nations.

This year, Việt Nam promoted diversification of the export market to increase market shares on the world market, Ngãi said. Especially, Việt Nam has completed negotiations on the Voluntary Partnership Agreement on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (VPA/FLEGT) between Việt Nam and the European Union, opening many opportunities on market development in the future.

Lack of material

Experts also said Việt Nam’s wood processing industry would continue development in production and business over the coming years.

However, wood processing enterprises said the industry had fallen due to a lack of material for production.

Bùi Như Việt, vice chairman of the Bình Dương Wood Association, said enterprises in the South were lacking material for production because in the past, many Chinese enterprises had come to purchase large volumes of wood.

Trương Mộng Trinh, director of Mộc Lục Wood Company, also said more and more foreign enterprises had purchased wooden material, leading to a lower supply of the material for local processing companies and a higher price for wood, from VNĐ2-3 million per cubic metre to VNĐ5 million at present.

Đỗ Xuân Lập, chairman of Bình Định Wood Association, said now, the price of rubber wood had increased by 20-25 per cent and there was strong competition for wood on the local market.

This put pressure of procuring enough wood for production on enterprises in HCM City, Bình Dương, Đồng Nai and Bình Định provinces, he said.

Local wood producers said the Government had solutions on avoiding the lack of material for wood processing but export tariff rates at present had not limited export activities for wood, especially exports to China, reported Công Thương newspaper.

To ensure sustainable supply of this material in the future, the local enterprises expect the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Việt Nam Wood and Forest Products Association to propose solutions to the Government on limiting exports of material for wood processing.

Especially, the enterprises proposed increasing export tariffs for timber and sawn timber to 20 per cent as one of the efficient solutions to limit exports of timber for processing wooden products.

Dương Phương Thảo, deputy head of the Import and Export Department from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, said in the future, the State should control exports of wood while also creating favourable conditions for local enterprises to exploit wood in foreign countries.

That meant the Government would work with Việt Nam’s enterprises to grow trees for supplying wood in Cambodia and Laos as well as the governments of the two countries to import the material to Việt Nam, she said. - VNS