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.

The increasing global inflation, especially in the third quarter of 2022, had negative impact on the wood industry’s orders in the last months of the year, putting wood processing and exporting enterprises in a critical situation. However, with efforts of businesses, the sector gradually approached the target set from the beginning of 2022.

Statistics of the General Department of Vietnam Customs show that the country’s export turnover of wood and wood products is estimated at 15.8 billion USD in 2022, of which 10.92 billion USD came from timber products, up 6.7% year-on-year.

To achieve these figures, businesses had to make most use of each type of waste wood, and rotate orders to avoid a backlog of goods.

Nguyen Liem, Founder and Chairman of Lam Viet Limited Company, said that while the export of furniture and wood products decreased, that of wood chips and pellets increased sharply, with pellets mainly to the Republic of Korea, Japan and Europe, and wood chips to China.

President of the JCI Vietnam Vu Tuan Anh said Chinese merchants are looking for woodchips from Vietnam to serve paper production and provide them as materials for pellet factories in China.

With limit ed supply at home, China will continue relying on neighbouring countries for wood materials. This will create opportunities for Vietnamese wood exporters, he said.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Export-Import Department, not only the EU market, the demand for woodchips and pellets in Asia is surging, mostly in the Republic of Korea and Japan that are switching from coal-fired to clean electricity, including biomass power./.