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Xinhua) 17:01, August 08, 2014
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Comments twitter facebook Sina Microblog reddit HANOI, Aug. 8 -- The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, once reached, isexpected to bring opportunities to many sectors of Vietnamese economy. However, thecountry's wood export will face challenges as it fails to meet TPP's requirement for regionalvalue content, assessed local experts.
Pham Minh Duc, a senior economist from World Bank, was quoted by local Bao CongThuong (Industry and Trade News), an online newspaper of Vietnam's Ministry ofIndustry and Trade (MoIT), on Friday as saying that under TPP's regulations on regionalvalue content, a product must have a localization rate of at least 55 percent of the totalvalue.
This means a producer is allowed to import a maximum of 45 percent of materials fromnon-TPP members to make the product, including processing costs.
"This can pose an obstacle to Vietnamese wood products as they currently fail to meet therequirement of localization rate," said Duc.
On average, Vietnam imports nearly 3.5 million cubic meters of wood annually, 65 percentof which are lumber for the local wood processing industry, reported Bao Cong Thuong.
Moreover, Vietnamese wood, ahead of TPP, faces another challenge of labor skill.
The skill and productivity of Vietnamese labors are now limited. Average productivity ofone Vietnamese worker is 1.9 chair items per day, much lower than that of 4.5 chair itemsper day for a worker in China, said Duc.
In order to increase the quality of wood products following TPP standards, Vietnam needsto develop a skilled workforce, said Duc.
Despite these challenges, the economist maintained an optimistic view over the future ofVietnam's wood processing, exporting sector and believed that the Vietnamesegovernment plays an important role in developing the sector.
Phan Chi Dung, head of MoIT's Light Industry Department, said that the Vietnamesegovernment should quickly build a development plan for the wood processing industry andmaterial areas, create favorable conditions for companies and household businesses toapproach loans, and seek measures to reduce costs for companies during producing,export-import processes.
Vietnam is currently among the top 10 largest exporters of wood furniture and handicrafts.Statistics from MoIT showed that in 2013, Vietnam's wood export revenue hit 5.7 billionU.S. dollars, up 19 percent year on year.
According to a report by Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development(MARD) in late July, export revenue of forestry products in the first seven months of 2014reached 3.52 billion U. S. dollars, up 13.2 percent year on year.
Most of Vietnam's wood markets, including the United States and Japan --- the twobiggest importers, witnessed increases, while exports to China fell by 1.38 percent year onyear, said MARD.
In 2014, Vietnam's revenue from exports of wood and related products is forecast to reach6.5 billion U.S. dollars, said Dung.
(Editor:Kong Defang、Huang Jin)
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