As the American and European markets have strict requirements about the wood origins of wood and furniture imports, Vietnamese exporters are struggling to look for certified wood supply sources.

Speaking at the forestry review conference held early this month, Cao Chi Cong, director general of the Forest Use Department, said the country has 10 sustainable afforestation models. 5 of them have been piloted with international involvement and the rest carried out by local authorities.

Vietnam’s total forest area is now 13 million hectares, including 8 million hectares of production forests. However, only 36,000 hectares, or a mere 0.5 percent of the total production forest area, has received Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certifications.

Enterprises thus find it hard to find legal wood supply sources.

According to the nation’s forest development program, 30 percent of forests should be issued the Sustainable Management Certificate by 2020. However, due to problems in land dispute settlement and the high certification fee, the implementation pace has failed to meet the expectation.

“Given the current implementation pace, the 30 percent target is infeasible,” Cong said.
Nguyen Ton Quyen, secretary general of the Vietnam Timber and Forest Product Association, noted that local wood exporters must satisfy the US.

Lacey Act and the EU’s Flegt Act, but insufficient legal supply sources remained a big obstacle.

Nguyen Van Thu, director of PISICO Wooden Furniture Joint Stock Company, said his firm mostly imported wood from Malaysia and Brazil, and purchased it locally from Quy Nhon Forestation Co., Ltd., the Japan-invested company joining the afforestation program in Binh Dinh Province.

At an international seminar on legal wood commerce held on January 10, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat said there are 3,400 wood enterprises and 600 workshops nationwide, attracting 300,000 laborers.

Vietnam has become the leading furniture exporter in the region and the 10th biggest exporter worldwide.

Still, as 80 percent of wood materials are imported, the wood processing industry earns low profits and develops unsustainably.

The agriculture ministry’s statistics showed that the export turnover of Vietnamese wooden products last year reached US$4.1 billion, rising 14.7 percent year-on-year.

Traditional importers like the US, China, Japan, South Korea and England bought as much as 80 percent of Vietnamese export furniture worth over US$3 billion.

However, the local wood processing industry is still dependent heavily on imported materials.

Vietnam spent as much as US$1.33 billion in 2011 on importing wood materials and other forestry products, or a surge of 16.6 percent against 2010.

The industry targets an export turnover of $4.5 billion in 2015 and US$7 billion in 2020.
The agriculture ministry estimates $7 billion is needed for investment in the wood industry from now to 2020 while afforestation will need $800 million to $1 billion.

Source: VNA