Wood industry trade surplus over 7.8 billion USD

On August 9, 2024, speaking at the "Conference of the wood and forest products processing and export industry in the third quarter of 2024", Mr. Trieu Van Luc - Deputy Director of the Department of Forestry (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development - NNPTNT) said: In the first 7 months of 2024, the export value of wood and forest products is estimated at 9.361 billion USD, an increase of 20.5% over the same period last year. On the contrary, the import value of wood and wood products in the first 7 months is estimated at 1.5 billion USD, an increase of 22.3% over 2023.

"With the above results, the trade surplus of the whole industry after 7 months is estimated at 7.86 billion USD" - Mr. Luc said.

In the first 7 months of 2024, wood and wood product exports to the US increased by 24%, reaching 5.019 billion USD; China: Increased by 37.92%, reaching 1.22 billion USD; Europe (EU): Increased by 22.44%, reaching 555 million USD.

However, exports of wood and wood products to Japan and South Korea decreased (Japan decreased by 2.73%, South Korea decreased by 1%).

Forecast of difficulties in wood export, need solutions

Sharing at the workshop, traders also said that wood and wooden furniture exports are facing many difficulties because the world economy is still facing many challenges: the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Panama Canal drought, the Red Sea crisis, etc. In addition, the world economic growth is forecast to increase by 2.6%, lower than the 3.1% increase in 2023.

The above factors will certainly have a significant impact on the wood industry's trade.

In particular, according to Mr. Do Xuan Lap - Chairman of the Vietnam Timber and Forest Products Association (VIFOREST), Vietnamese enterprises exporting goods to the US will continue to be discriminated against in anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations of this country, the actual production costs of Vietnamese enterprises will continue to not be recognized but must use the "replacement value" of a third country to calculate the dumping margin.

"The number of lawsuits may continue to increase in the coming time, when the US and world economies are facing crises and the US manufacturing industry is facing difficulties," said Mr. Do Xuan Lap.

Regarding solutions for the wood industry in the coming time, Mr. Do Xuan Lap said that it is necessary to improve the competitiveness of enterprises. In particular, it is necessary to focus on 5 main contents: Technical and technological solutions in production; Production must reduce emissions (green products); management solutions in which priority is digital transformation (applying software in management); promoting trade promotion (putting market development as the current priority); building a set of internal monitoring standards in enterprises.

VIFOREST recommends that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and relevant Government agencies support and guide businesses in responding to US trade defense investigations. At the same time, there should be a coordination mechanism to update information on policy changes in key export markets of the Vietnamese wood industry and provide forecasts, warnings and information related to trade defense.

Accordingly, the authorities develop policies to support trade promotion activities for the wood industry, in order to help businesses have more opportunities to introduce and promote the image of Vietnamese wood to export markets. VIFOREST also recommends that the Ministry of Planning and Investment have policies to discourage foreign-invested enterprises from investing in projects to produce wood products whose countries have been subject to anti-dumping taxes by third countries.