[Vnbiz] Vietnam's furniture exporters running out of wood

[Phan, Tai]

Vietnam's furniture exporters running out of wood  
Posted : Mon, 11 Jun 2007 06:02:00GMT 
Author : DPA  
EarthTimes.org
Environment News 
 
 
 
Hanoi - Vietnam's wood furniture exports are rising so fast that manufacturers are having a hard time finding enough wood to meet demand, a government official said Monday. The country's wood furniture exports have risen from 219 million dollars in 2000 to 1.9 billion dollars last year. This year, the government projects a further rise to 2.5 billion dollars. In 2006, Vietnam moved past Indonesia and Thailand to become the second-largest exporter in South-East Asia, behind only Malaysia. 

But the industry has long since outstripped the ability of Vietnam's forests to supply it with raw materials, said Doan Xuan Hoa, deputy director of the Forestry Product Processing Department in Vietnam's Agriculture Ministry. 

"Currently, the wood-processing industry must import up to 80 per cent of the materials needed for its production," Hoa said. "The industry may have difficulty developing in the future without securing domestic timber supplies as many countries are reducing their timber exports."

With exports of sawn lumber from countries in the region like Indonesia and Malaysia dropping, Vietnamese manufacturers have been forced to turn farther afield. In 2006, Vietnam became a major importer of timber from Brazil. 

At a conference on sustainable forest industry development held Friday in Ho Chi Minh City, government officials and private forestry experts said Vietnam would need to invest heavily in developing its domestic forests if it expects to meet its ambitious targets for further growth in the wood furniture industry. 

The government foresees wood furniture exports more than doubling by 2010 to more than 5.5 billion dollars. It wants to invest in reforestation projects to ensure that by 2020, 80 per cent of Vietnamese production comes from domestic sources. 

Such a change could dramatically improve Vietnam's balance of trade. In 2006, the country imported 1 billion dollars of timber. 

But most manufacturers in Vietnam are too small to undertake reforestation projects of their own. Bui Xuan Khu, deputy industry minister, told the conference that few Vietnamese manufacturers own more than 100 hectares of forest. 

The Agriculture Ministry's Hoa said that shifting to domestic wood supplies remained a long-term project. 

"Growing forests will take a long time, between 10 and 20 years," Hoa said. "For now, we must import timber and grow the forests at the same time." 

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