Vietnam raked in more than 1 billion USD from wood and wood product exports in October, up 22.7 percent year-on-year, according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

Illustrative image

Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Handicraft and Wood Processing Association (Hawa) Huynh Van Hanh said this is the first time in just one month the export value of wood and wood products surpasses the 1-billion USD benchmark.

Hanh said in recent years, the Vietnamese Government has effectively prevented origin fraud in which Vietnamese products are exported to foreign countries. Therefore, the wood and wood products export market is expected to be brighter in the last months of this year, he said.

However, timber enterprises still need to be very vigilant and resolute to say no to the origin fraud of exported timber and wood products, in order to maintain important markets including the EU, US and China and continue to grow impressively in the near future, Hanh said.

In 2018, wood and wood product exports brought home nearly 9 billion USD.

Insiders said that if the sector maintains the export turnover of about 900 million USD in the last few months, the country will this year certainly surpass the 10-billion USD mark for the first time.