The US is currently the largest consumer market for Vietnam’s wood and wood products.

The UK-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (UVFTA) is one of the key drivers boosting the growth of Vietnam’s timber and wood product exports to the UK, industry experts have said.

Vietnam’s national pavilion at the High Point Market fair in North Carolina, the US, was inaugurated on October 26.

The northern province of Bac Giang is set to develop more large-timber forest with a view to helping improve the local forestry sector’s production value, said Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Le O Pich.

Vietnam and Japan will enhance forest management collaboration under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in a recent working visit to the East Asian country by Director of the Department of Forestry Tran Quang Bao.

Vietnam’s exports have been on a path of recovery since the beginning of the year.

While optimistic about a recovery in wood products exports, industry insiders also cautioned about the challenges ahead and said businesses should adopt flexible strategies and enhance promotions to retain their traditional customers and get new ones.

Further opportunities will be unlocked for Vietnamese home and kitchen decor and its furniture industry by tapping into the strong foundation of traditional long-standing craft villages, natural material resources and manufacturing capacity.

Vietnam’s wood and wooden product exports have seen signs of gradual recovery, according to the Hanoi-based DSC Securities Joint Stock Company (DSC).

Wood producers and exporters are pinning high hope on trade fairs and expos, as the lack of orders is causing difficulties for their production and business activities, according to insiders.

Vietnam raked in an estimated 6.42 billion USD from forestry product exports in the first half of 2023, down 28.8% year on year, according to the Department of Forestry under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Global political and economic fluctuations in 2022 have affected import and export activities, especially those of enterprises operating in the wood manufacturing and processing industry, making them calculate each step in the year-end period to achieve the set targets.

This year’s forestry exports are estimated at over 16.9 billion USD, up 6.1% from 2021, according to the Vietnam Administration of Forestry.

The southern province of Dong Nai expects to see a record trade surplus of 5.8 billion USD in 2022, according to the provincial Statistics Office.

Despite numerous difficulties coming from the domestic and international situation, the agricultural sector has managed to achieve important targets, and it still persists in this year’s agro-forestry-fishery export target of 50 billion USD as assigned by the Prime Minister.

The export value of forestry products in July dropped by 5.5% from the previous month to 1.41 billion USD, also down 1.6% from the same period last year, according to the Forestry Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Suspension of production at local wood processing enterprises due to the COVID-19 pandemic is having effects on exports, according to the Vietnam Timber and Forest Product Association (VIFOREST).

Vietnam exported 9.58 billion USD worth of wood and wood products in the first seven months of this year, a year-on-year increase of 55 percent, according to the General Department of Customs.

The Vietnam Rubber Group (GVR) targets to earn revenue and profit of 26.9 trillion VND (1.17 billion USD) and 4.56 trillion VND this year, respectively.

The export turnover of wood and wood products hit 4.99 billion USD in the first four months of 2021, a surge of 50.5 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development.