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| Logs are hauled onto a vehicle in the O’Tang area of Ratanakkiri province for shipment to Vietnam in February. EIA |
Cambodia is Vietnam’s top timber supplier: data
Phnom Penh Post | 10 May 2017
Despite ostensibly having banned timber exports to Vietnam in
January last year, Cambodia was Vietnam’s largest supplier of wood by
value in the first quarter of 2017, according to Vietnamese customs
statistics.
Published by online Vietnamese news site Vinanet, the figures break
down Vietnam’s almost $520 million of wood and wood product imports for
the first three months of the year.
Cambodia is at the top of the list of suppliers, having provided some
$97 million of timber to the country, which the figures indicate is
more than double the volume in the first quarter of 2016, when the
Cambodian government vowed they had stopped the timber trade with
Vietnam, which has fuelled rampant illegal logging.
Second on the list of suppliers is China, which exported $72 million
in timber, followed by the US, at $57 million and Malaysia at $24
million.
Laos, previously one of Vietnam’s biggest suppliers, dropped to near
the bottom of the list, exporting just $2.5 million of timber to its
neighbour after implementing a largely successful ban on the trade.
The figures corroborate a damning report released on Monday by the
Environmental Investigation Agency, which alleges Cambodian officials
received huge bribes to allow Vietnamese timber traders to strip
protected forests in Ratanakkiri province.
The article also notes Vietnam’s own wood exports valued more than $1 billion in the first quarter of 2017.
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