To minimise instabilities in wood imports, insiders of Vietnam’s wood industry said that it is necessary to promote domestic materials.
This statement came following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Vietnam’s wood industry assessing how it is affected by the war. During a webinar held by the Vietnam Timber and Forest Products Association (VIFORES) and Forest Trends, participants commented that Russia’s supply of wood materials to Vietnam is small. Additionally, Russia is not a large importer of Vietnam’s wood products.
This means the future fall of the supply source would not have a direct impact on the Vietnamese wood sector, and the decrease in demand in the future will not create considerable negative impacts for Vietnam.
Even then, the Russia-Ukraine conflict will likely cause a shrink in terms of wood material supply from Russia, triggering a global shortage of wood materials in the future, according to the participants of the webinar.
This shortage may cause competition for wood imports between countries, spelling trouble for Vietnam since South East Asian countries depending on imported wood materials.
As such, to deal with future difficulties facing the wood industry, Vu Hai Bang, chairman of the Board of Directors of Woodsland JSC suggested that the domestic wood industry needs to maintain, protect and develop the domestic wood supply in both quantity and quality.
Experts have also suggested that the government should have policies to promote the planting of large-timber forests, and encourage wood processing enterprises to invest in plantation areas.
Source: Vietnam Plus
