VIETNAM - Vietnam’s forestry exports in the January-August period reached USD 7.08 billion, up 18.6 percent over the same period of 2018, with timber and timber products bringing in USD 6.66 billion.

Key destinations for Vietnamese forestry products stayed the same, including the US, Japan, the EU, China and the Republic of Korea, whose combined imports accounted for 80 percent of Vietnam’s total shipments.

Exports to the US were primarily interior wood products, construction wood and plywood, while Japan mainly imported wood chips, interior wood products, construction wood and plywood.

In the first eight months of 2019, Vietnam also imported USD 1.673 billion worth of timber and timber products, up 14 percent year on year.

Vietnamese wood imports mainly came from China, the US, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Chile, Germany, Brazil, New Zealand and France.

According to the General Department of Forestry, Vietnam harvested 13 million cubic meters of wood in the January-August period, up 5.4 percent from a year earlier. The figure for August alone was 1.68 million cubic meters.

Vietnam currently has 4,500 enterprises processing and exporting wood and forest products, including 1,863 exporters. They involved more than 700 foreign-invested businesses with a large-scale production and application of technology for production.

For 2019, the forestry sector has set targets of growth rate at 5.5 – 6 percent in production value and export value at 10.5 billion USD.