Ministry predicts wood exports at 7.5 billion USD this year

The ministry said the overseas shipments of wood and wood products have continually grown since the beginning of this year, reaching 2.4 billion USD between January and April – a year-on-year rise of 12.7 percent.

The export of wood and wood products is forecast to keep increasing in the following years. (Photo for illustration. baodongnai.com.vn) 

Last May, the European Union (EU) and Vietnam finished the six-year negotiation on a voluntary partnership agreement (VPA) on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade.

While the EU has a demand for 85-90 billion USD worth of imported wood products each year, Vietnam’s annual export of these items to this market is just about 700-800 million USD.

The VPA is expected to help expand Vietnam’s wood export markets to 28 EU countries.

The MARD said if Vietnam taps into these markets well, its wood shipments to the EU can hit billions of USD each year. Meanwhile, there are signs that other countries also have stronger demand for Vietnam’s wood products, which will give another boost to the export of this industry.