Meanwhile, import value of the commodity reached an estimated USD170 million this month, up 8.6% compared to the same month last year. Of this, imports from Laos accounted for 26.9% of the total, followed by the US (11.5%) and Cambodia (11.3%).

Experts said that the domestic wood sector will face challenges to achieve the target of exporting USD7 billion in 2015. By the end of 2015, final negotiations on Voluntary Partnership Agreement regarding Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (VPA/FLEGT) between Vietnam and the European Union (EU) are expected to conclude and the agreement will be signed.

Accordingly, Vietnamese wood and wooden products must have clear origin before penetrating the EU market. In addition, in the wide and deep integration process, Vietnam will suffer fierce competition with other wood exporters around the world and investors in wood production and processing continues to face expensive production cost, especially sea transport price.

In 2014, the country earned USD6.21 billion from wood and wooden products exports, a year-on-year rise of 11.1%. Exports of the commodity saw growth in almost all of major markets, except China with a decline of 17.08% against 2013. Japan and the US had the sharpest market growth of 15.5% and 11.1%, respectively. Three key markets of Vietnam’s wood exports, including the US, Japan and China made up 65.1% of the total commodity export turnover./.

Hoang Nguyen