Workers at the Phú Quý Wood Processing Plant in Đồng Hới City in the central province of Quảng Bình. — VNA/VNS Photo Vũ Sinh

HCM CITY — Việt Nam will soon issue quality and technical regulations for wood glues to better control this input material for the wood processing industry, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The move also targets to protect the health of wood product producers and users as well as to raise the quality and prestige of Vietnamese wood products in the market, said Nguyễn Mạnh Dũng of the ministry’s Department of Processing and Trade for Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Products and Salt Production.

With timber resources from natural forests shrinking, wood exploited from plantation forests has become a main source for Việt Nam’s wood processing industry.

According to the zoning plan for the wood processing industry, the country targets to produce three million cubic metres of artificial board a year by 2020, of which fibre board accounts for 1.6-1.8 million m3, joined timber slabs about one million m3 and particle board between 100,000-320,000 m3.

The demand for different wood adhesives, including UF (urea-formaldehyde), PF (phenol-formaldehyde), MF (melamine-formaldehyde) and PVAc (polyvinyl acetate), is expected to reach 240,000-300,000 tonnes a year by 2020, Dũng told a seminar on technical standards for wood glue quality held on the sidelines of the Việt Nam International Furniture and Home Accessories Fair (VIFA-EXPO 2017).

Before 2010, producers of wood adhesives, particularly UF and PF, did not pay much attention in the quality of their products.

This was changed since 2011 when many businesses, especially foreign firms, began supplying the market many high-quality wood glues.

But many wood processors, particularly those producing MDF (Medium-density fibre board) and particle board, still produce the adhesives to serve their own demand, and many businesses imported poor quality adhesives for the domestic market.

In fact, many wood processors still use low quality adhesives to reduce their production costs, with their products mainly sold in the domestic market.

The quality of wood adhesives has great affected to the wood product quality as well as the health of producers and users.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) with high vapor pressure at ordinary room temperature are included in wood glues such as formaldehyde and have adverse effects on humans and the environment.

This requires the country to quickly establish standards and technical regulations to manage and control the quality of wood glues, he said.

The department, in collaboration with universities and institutes as well as based on Singapore’s standard regulations, have compiled a draft on national technical regulation on the quality of wood adhesives.

The department is collecting comments from leading experts in the industry and relevant organizations to amend, adjust and complete the draft, he said.

Việt Nam was among the world’s large producers and exporters of wooden products.

According to the Handicraft and Wood Industry Association of HCM City, the export of wood and wood products is expected to fetch US$8 billion this year, up from $7.3 billion last year.

In the domestic market, consumption of wood products is forecast to be about $1.3 billion this year, said Huỳnh Văn Hạnh, the association’s deputy chairman. — VNS