Wood exports increase thanks to foreign investment

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, for making use well of free trade agreements, in the first ten months of this year, export turnover of Vietnamese wood and wood products to the US posted strong growth compared to the same period last year with export value reaching US$4.2 billion, an increase of 34.5 percent.
Exports of wood and wood products in November this year touched $1.08 billion. In the first eleven months of this year, wood and wood product exports were estimated at $9.64 billion, an increase of 19.5 percent over the same period last year.

According to the Vietnam Timber and Forest Product Association, from 2018 to now, foreign direct investment into wood processing industry has increased rapidly through newly registered and additional capital projects, and capital contribution via the form of purchase of shares of investors from China, Japan and South Korea.

By the end of September this year, Vietnam’s wood industry received 67 new investment projects with total investment capital of above $581 million, 2.3 times higher than total registered capital of last year. China led the list of largest investors in wood processing industry of Vietnam with 40 projects, accounting for nearly 60 percent of total number of investment projects.

However, wood industry still faces various challenges, including difficulties in controlling quality of projects and receiving small-scale projects that use  outdated technology and do not ensure environmental requirements, risks of trade fraud and origin fraud to take advantage of lower import tariff  from Vietnam compared to China when exporting to the US.

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