Government to revise timber trade with EU
Government to revise timber trade with EU
The government is working to improve its ability to respond to timber trade regulations with the European Union (EU) market under the new Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA).
As part of the Action Plan on Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT), the EU is working with timber producing countries to combat illegal logging globally. As such the VPA is an international trade agreement to reduce illegal wood harvesting and promote legal timber trade.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in cooperation with Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the World Wildlife Fund For Nature (WWF) has recently reviewed the progress and roadmap of the FLEGT process which coincides with Prime Minister's Order No. 15.
The process aims to strengthen timber management and trade to enable more value to be added by the national wood processing industry by improving the sustainable and legal supply of raw materials and increasing the qualifications of staff and workers in the wood processing industry.
Director General of the Department of Forestry under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Mr Sousath Sayakoummane, said during the second National Steering Committee meeting on the FLEGT process revision in Luang Prabang that forest governance and management plays an important part in ensuring the Lao timber trade gains access to major timber markets such as Asean, China, Republic of Korea, Japan, the US and the EU.
This initiative was also in line with the objectives of the Lao EU-FLEGT process, another initiative of the government to promote good governance in the forestry sector and timber trade, specifically with the European Union.
“The work of the FLEGT process, especially concerning improved timber flow monitoring in the pilot provinces endorsed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, will support the Prime Minister's Order No. 15. It will also combat deforestation because one of the core elements of the FLEGT process is to define what legal timber is, where it comes from, and how to monitor its movement in the supply chain process,” Mr Sousath added.
Director General of the Department of Forest Inspection, Mr Khamphout Phandanouvong, speaking at a meeting of the Forestry Legality Compendium, said “The Forestry Legality Compendium is a comprehensive review of the legal framework for the forestry sector in Laos and is the foundation for the first draft of the Timber Legality Definition for a natural production forest that has been developed and – together with the scope of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement - shall be discussed during the first FLEGT/VPA negotiations taking place in the last quarter of 2016 between the government and the European Union.”
