Timber exports to EU may hit 1 billion USD

Experts forecast about 1 billion USD worth of timber to be exported to the EU annually by 2020 thanks to the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).
Timber exports to EU may hit 1 billion USD ảnh 1Worker transport wooden planks at the Tavico Timber Jsc in southern ​Dong Nai province (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) - Experts forecast about 1 billion USD worthof timber to be exported to the EU annually by 2020 thanks to the EU-VietnamFree Trade Agreement (EVFTA), according to an official of the Vietnam Timberand Forest Association.

Nguyen Ton Quyen, Vice Chairman and General Secretary of theassociation, said for many years, export value of timber and wooden productsfrom Vietnam to EU reached at annual average about 650-700 million USD.

The EVFTA, expected to come into effect next year, willcreate a positive impact on the Vietnamese timber industry. At present, Vietnam’stimber and wooden products are exported mainly to Germany, France, Spain andItaly, but with EVFTA, the export market would be expanded to other EU membercountries.

In fact, demand for timber products in the EU has been about 80-85billion USD per year. That is much larger than Vietnam’s export value of timberand wooden products to the bloc.

EU timber processing technology boosts productivity by up toabout 15-20 percent, he said. Under the EVFTA, together with a zero tax rate,businesses can more easily import machinery, equipment, and wood processingtechnology as well as learn corporate governance from the EU.

Quyen said the EU market had strict standards for exportedtimber and wooden products. A number of exporters in the northern region stilldo not know much about those standards and only about half a dozen havequalified to export their products to the EU. Meanwhile, hundreds of businessesin the central and southern regions have knowledge about those standards andEVFTA.

To take full advantages from the agreement in exporting goodsto the EU, businesses need to constantly learn, update information and improvethemselves.

Total Vietnamese exports of wood and timber products are expected to hit 8billion USD in 2017, surpassing the yearly target of 7.5 billion USD, Quyensaid.

The figure reached nearly 7 billion USD in January-November, up 10.5 percentfrom the same period last year, he said.

Strong growth in wood exports was seen in key markets such asthe US (up 18.8 percent), the Republic of Korea (14.2 percent) and Canada (13.4percent). The trend was attributed to an increase in processed wooden products,such as MDF (medium-density fibre board), particle board and artificial board.

To Xuan Phuc from the US-based Forest Trends, said Vietnam’s woodand timber exports to the US, currently worth up to 2.7 billion USD, might beaffected by the US’s policy of creating more jobs in the US.

The US, Japan, the EU, China and the Republic of Korea arethe biggest importers of Vietnam’s timber and wooden products, accounting for90 percent of the total value of the sector. The US imports 42.7 percent,followed by China (14.1 percent) and Japan (13.7 percent).-VNA
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