Hanoi (VNS/VNA) — Vietnam’s wood exports have increased over the last few years and are expected to reach a new record in 2021.

The export turnover of wood and wood products has seen an average increase of 15.4 percent per year in the 2017-2020 period, or 1.35 billion USD, even greater than the total turnover of many items.

The export turnover of wood and wood products reached approximately 3.7 billion USD in the first quarter of this year, up 41.5 percent, nearly double the growth rate of the total export turnover of the country at 22 percent.

It is expected the export turnover of wood will surpass the 14.8 billion USD benchmark, an increase of nearly 20 percent, or 2.4 billion USD compared to the previous year.

Export turnover of wood and wood products is the sixth largest among Vietnamese export sectors. Wood and wood products are also the items with the largest trade surplus, contributing to improving the trade balance.

This sector has achieved such great results due to many factors, including the rate of forest cover being kept at around 42 percent. Every year, the concentrated afforestation area is over 260,000 hectares.

These are among the factors to protect and improve the environment, as well as a fundamental factor to create jobs, reduce poverty rates in the mountainous and midland provinces, and as a source of raw materials for wood processing industry and wood export.

The amount of annual exploited wood has increased, surpassing 10 million cubic metres in 2015 and 16 million cubic metres in 2019.

Exploited wood grew by 33.9 percent last year compared to 2016, an average annual increase of 7.6 percent, or 1.07 million cubic metres.

In terms of market, the US is the largest export market, accounting for 60.4 percent of Vietnam’s total wood export turnover, followed by China with 9.9 percent, Japan 9.5 percent, and the Republic of Korea 5.7 percent. These four markets alone account for 85.5 percent of the total.

In terms of production capacity, excluding individuals, production groups and cooperatives, Vietnam currently has nearly 12,000 enterprises, with about 500,000 employees and 320 trillion VND (nearly 14 billion USD) of production-business capital over 120 trillion VND in value of fixed assets, and nearly 360 trillion VND in net revenue.

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