Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will chair a meeting on wood processing industry and forestry exports in HCM City on August 8, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Viet Nam Administration of Forestry has announced.

The forthcoming event will attract the participation of more than 500 enterprises operating in wood and representatives from foreign and domestic agencies. They will discuss measures for the fast and sustainable development of timber industry in the time to come.

Statistics from the administration revealed that the country earned US$5 billion from forestry exports in the first seven months of this year, up 14 per cent year-on-year.

The exports fulfilled nearly 56 per cent of the yearly target and made up 22.6 per cent of the total turnover of the agriculture sector.

The US, China, Japan and South Korea were the largest forestry importers of Vietnamese timber goods. Other markets with strong growth included Malaysia, France and Australia.

During the period, the forestry industry ran a trade surplus of $3.77 billion, with imports of those products standing at $1.24 billion, a slight increase of 0.4 per cent over the same period last year.

Experts predicted that the export turnover of wood and timber products is expected to increase in the remaining months of this year in line with consumption habits. In addition, Viet Nam and the EU are completing legal procedures to approve the signing of the voluntary partnership agreement (VPA) on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT).

By mid-July 2018, the European Commission (EC) approved the content of the agreement and agreed to submit it to the EU Council of Ministers for official signing. The Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has submitted the document to the Government for signing. — VNS