Speeding up the opening of export markets for Vietnamese wood

	Fifty containers of imported wood inspected
	Vietnam"s wood industry moving towards transparent trade
	Exports flourished in 6 months, firms improved revenue

Mr. Bui Chinh Nghia, Deputy Director of General Department of Forestry (MARD)

Exports of wood and forest products in the first half of 2021 is estimated at US$8.71 billion, up 61.6% over the same period in 2020, trade surplus is about US$7.2 billion. What are the main factors that help the wood industry achieve such impressive results, especially in the context that the Covid-19 pandemic has been causing many difficulties for global trade, sir?

Despite many difficulties in the world economy and Vietnam's economy, wood enterprises have had stable production, processing, consumption and especially exports.

The world market for wood products is very large, while Vietnam's market share is currently only 6-7%, so there is a lot of space for development. The source of domestic raw materials has now begun to gradually stabilize. The proportion of domestic raw materials contributing to export value has gradually increased.

Another important factor is that businesses have made good use of bilateral and multilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) that Vietnam has signed. Wood industry enterprises have made good use of opportunities for breakthrough growth; by identifying the needs of the growing market, key markets such as the US, EU, and Japan to innovate methods of corporate governance.

The application of e-commerce to promote and sell products on online platforms as well as through social networking sites has helped the wood industry take advantage of many opportunities.

How do you evaluate the ability to manage and restructure the operating model of Vietnamese wood processing and exporting enterprises to suit the changing requirements of the world market facing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic?

The issue of corporate governance has received a lot of attention and innovation from businesses. Enterprises are very creative in model transformation and business restructuring. It is more important when businesses have established new sales channels. The role of associations is very important, they have worked closely with businesses to have many initiatives to help businesses access international markets in the most effective way.

Could you tell us how the Vietnam-EU FTA (EVFTA) impacts Vietnam's wood and forest product exports to the EU market since it took effect from August 1, 2020, especially in the first half this year?

In the first six months of this year, export growth to the EU market was very impressive, up 54% over the same period last year. While the previous years of 2019, 2020 did not have such high growth, there were even times when exports had negative growth.

In the first six months of this year, exports to the EU market had a remarkable growth. One of the reasons is the Vietnamese wood industry has made good use of the EVFTA.

By the end of 2020, Vietnam's wood industry has received 63 new FDI projects with a total registered investment capital of nearly US$327.7 million and it is forecast that the trend of FDI pouring capital into the Vietnamese wood industry will continue in the future. Looking at FDI enterprises' investment, according to you, what lessons do Vietnam's wood processing and exporting enterprises need to have and focus on key investment issues to improve competitiveness?

Vietnam always treats FDI enterprises and domestic enterprises fairly. FDI enterprises play an important role in the economic development of the country in general and the wood industry in particular. Among these, Vietnamese enterprises should consider FDI enterprises as partners, and at the same time a counterweight to set a milestone to strive and improve their position.

There are three points that Vietnamese enterprises need to focus on investing when looking at FDI enterprises. Firstly, the level of technology and equipment of FDI enterprises is better and Vietnamese enterprises should learn from this. Second, the corporate governance level of FDI enterprises is very high. They bring the world's advantages and advances to Vietnam. Third, FDI enterprises train human resources very methodically.

Vietnamese enterprises should pay attention to those factors, improve their competitiveness as well as improve efficiency in the investment process.

To maintain the growth rate towards the export target of about US$15.5 billion this year, could you tell us more about the solutions that the General Department of Forestry Development proposes to the Government to support domestic wood enterprises to find export opportunities in the context of world economic fluctuations.

Firstly, the General Department of Forestry is being assigned to develop a Decree on a number of mechanisms and policies in forestry, including defining a number of mechanisms and policies for the wood processing industry.

Secondly, the General Department of Forestry is developing a project on an effective and sustainable wood processing industry in the 2021-2030 period and will submit it to the Prime Minister in October 2021. In addition, the General Department will continue to capture information from businesses to promptly advise the Ministry and report to the Government to support wood industry enterprises affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Opening the market is a very important factor. Therefore, the General Department of Forestry will stand in the role of state agencies in coordination with relevant agencies to continue negotiating with countries that are potential markets, signing memorandums of understanding and cooperation in forest product processing and trade activities.

Continuing to support and coordinate with associations to implement trade promotion activities, open the market, gradually bring products to more countries so will be more widely consumed.