Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam’s wood industryfaces a quandary as bright export growth prospects are clouded by difficultiesin finding necessary raw materials.

Nguyen Ton Quyen, Vice President and General Secretaryof the Vietnam Timber and Forest Product Association (VIFORES), expected amixed bag of fortunes in the domestic wood sector this year, with a handful ofnew trade agreements set to take effect.

Quyen said that he was certain exports of woodproducts from Vietnam will increase significantly, even for a country that isalready the world’s third largest and ASEAN’s biggest wooden furniture exporter.

He cited the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA)and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)as major boosts for wood exports, opening up access to a total of 28 marketsacross the world.

But such hope will be in vain without thenecessary policies and guidelines to facilitate processing enterprises in theface of high global standards, changing technology and a shifting laboursource, he added.

Worse still, while exportsare to rise, the Vietnamese wood industry faces a seeminglyinsolvable problem of increasing the quantity of raw materials to meetproducers’ demand for legally obtained timber.

Quyen showed particular concern for an imminentfierce competition to obtain materials, especially from the Chinese market,whose wood processing industry is expected to demand about 60 million cubicmetres of raw timber this year alone. 

He explained that Chinese enterprises will scourneighbouring markets to procure this massive amount ofmaterials, thus putting Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries undercompetitive pressure.

[2018 to be good year for wood products export]

Meanwhile, neighbouring countries such as Laos,Cambodia or Myanmar will continue to ban the export of logs and sawn timberdirectly from plantations, further reducing supply.

Nguyen Quoc Tri, Director General of the Ministryof Agriculture and Rural Department’s (MARD) Vietnam Administration of Forestry(VAF), was certain that the country’s wood products export turnover willreach 9 billion USD or more in 2018.

Tri said that although Vietnam has closed itsnatural forests for more than a year, the wood processing industry is stilldeveloping well, proving that they can do just fine without consuming naturalwood. But in order for that to happen, the country still needs about 34million cubic metres worth of raw material, he said.

Nonetheless, the VAF has set a target of 201,000 hectaresof new forests and to regenerate 360,000 hectares with an additional 50 milliontrees to be planted, in order to supply up to 18 million cubic metres of rawtimer in 2018. 

He worried that without proper sustainable forestmanagement, improved productivity, quality and distribution, there will not beenough wood to meet domestic demand.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural DevelopmentHa Cong Tuan suggested extending the life cycle of timber forests as a methodto improving the added value and quality of raw wood materials. 

The deputy minister said on the Government’s onlineportal that he counted on the support of foreign partners for Vietnameseenterprises to raise wood export turnover in 2018.

According to the MARD, the export value of woodand wood products in the first two months of 2018 had reached 1.34 billion USD,up by 26.3 percent over the same period in 2017.-VNA