Source: baodautu.vn
High export growth
Accounting for 4.4% of the country’s total export turnover and about 3% of the total global wood export turnover, wood and wood products are one of Vietnam’s key export products.
Since 2004, this item has joined the export “club” of over 1 billion USD and continuously maintained a relatively high export growth rate. In 2021, despite the impact of Covid-19, the export of wood and wood products still reached USD 14.809 billion, up 19.7% compared to 2020, holding the 6th position in export turnover in export items. Vietnam’s main export and leading in the group of agriculture – forestry – fishery.
In particular, the wood industry has a fairly large export surplus. In 2021, the wood industry has a trade surplus of 11.88 billion USD; The first quarter of 2022 had a trade surplus of USD 3.348 billion, an increase of USD 250 million over the same period last year.
Currently, Vietnam’s wood and wood products are present in 40 markets around the world. In 2021, there are 10 markets with over 100 million USD, including the US, China, Japan, Korea, UK, Canada… In the first two months of 2022, there are 14 markets with over 10 million USD.
Over the years, the wood industry has created many jobs, contributing to socio-economic development. In 2022, the export of wood and wood products is expected to surpass the USD 15.6 billion mark and continue to have a larger trade surplus than in 2021.
Lack of concentrated raw material area
One of the biggest challenges of the wood industry is the source of input materials. In 2020, the total demand for wood for processing is about 38.5 million m3, of which, domestic raw materials will meet about 30 million m3 (more than 20 million m3 from planted forests, nearly 10 million m3 from manure crops. canopy and rubber wood); imported about 8.5 million m3.
The wood industry is importing materials from 28 major markets. Import of raw materials accounts for a large proportion, leading to some limitations, such as dependence on source, price…
The project of developing a sustainable and effective wood processing industry in the 2021 – 2030 period has been approved by the Government, setting the target: by 2025, the export of wood and wood products will reach 20 billion USD, domestic consumption reached 5 billion USD; by 2030, exports will reach 25 billion USD, domestic consumption will reach over 6 billion USD. Thus, it can be seen that the demand for raw materials of the wood industry is very large.
The output of harvested timber is continuously increasing, but the wood industry lacks a concentrated raw material area. In the country, the total forest area reaches more than 14.677 million hectares (natural forest: 10,279 million hectares; planted forest: nearly 4.4 million hectares), including 7,480 million hectares of production forest; 5.257 million ha of protection forest, the rest is special-use forest.
Meanwhile, the timber industry belongs to 6 groups of industries that carry out risk responsibilities under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), by 2030 must stop using natural wood. The planted forest allocated to households is mainly small wood. Not to mention, the situation of forest fires and deforestation is common.
To overcome this problem, according to experts, it is necessary to have mechanisms and policies to invest in raw materials in the country, to build a chain of afforestation – intermediate material production – deep processing. In particular, must protect forests, minimize forest fires; supervise and strictly handle the situation of deforestation; food support for people to prevent the practice of shifting cultivation, shifting cultivation, nomadism… Along with that, it is necessary to gradually close the natural forests; inspect and handle violations of the origin of goods; support domestic businesses.
At the output, in parallel with focusing on exploiting and developing traditional markets, the wood industry needs to expand the market to avoid “putting all eggs in one basket”. On the other hand, it is necessary to improve production capacity to meet the needs of foreign importers to import large consignments in a short time.
