Hanoi - Vietnam has denied a report by two non-governmental organizations, the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and the Indonesian organization Telapak, which called Vietnam a major hub for processing illegally logged timber, a government official said Friday. EIA and Telapak said in a report last month that they had gathered evidence that "Vietnam is now exploiting the forests of neighboring Laos to obtain valuable hardwoods for its outdoor furniture industry."
"What they say about the wood processing industry in Vietnam in their report is completely wrong and baseless," said Dau Ngoc Nam, Deputy Director of the Agriculture Ministry's Forestry Product Processing Department.
The official said Vietnam imports some 80 per cent of the timber needed for its wood processing industry and that most of the timber is legally imported from Australia, New Zealand, the US and other countries in South-East Asia.
"We are also importing timber from Laos and Cambodia under contracts signed between the respective governments, and all the imported timber has clear origins," Nam said.
Vietnamese press reported Friday that the Association of Timber and Forest Product Association had said the report was "aimed at slandering the prestige of Vietnam's wood processing industry."
Heiko Woerner, technical advisor with the German Vietnam Forestry Programme, criticized some aspects of the EIA report. But he said the report was right to identify illegal timber imports in Vietnam as a serious problem, and that he did not doubt the volumes the report cited.
"The importing of illegal logs from Laos could be stopped if the two countries would just enforce the law at the customs posts," Woerner said.
Vietnamese wood processing and manufacturing companies have been moving towards having their timber certified by international bodies to ensure it has not been logged illegally. Woerner said seven major Vietnamese companies, controlling between 5 and 10 per cent of the country's wood market, have been certified, and called the country a regional leader in wood certification.
Woerner said Vietnamese wood products reaching the European market were largely certified because major European retailers insisted that their suppliers have certification.
Wooden products are Vietnam's sixth largest export earner. The country hopes to bring in 3 billion dollars from wood product exports this year, compared with 2.4 billion dollars last year.
"The report may have adverse impacts on our export targets, as importers from the US and European may reconsider their orders," Nam said.
Nam admitted that illegal timber logging activities do occur in Vietnam, but said forest rangers were busting most such cases.
According to the National Forest Protection Department, Vietnam seized nearly 42,000 cubic metres of illegally logged timber last year. The country imported some 3 million cubic metres of timber in 2007, worth a total of 740 million dollars.
