The Forestry Ministry is confident that the export of forestry products to the European Union (EU) will grow up to 20% with the signing of an agreement between Indonesia and the union by the end of the month. Source: The Jakarta Post
The Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA), which certifies that Indonesian exporters are using legally sourced timber for their forestry products, will be signed on 30 September in Brussels, Belgium, after several delays.
“Since it’s still new, [we] can only see the actual outcome by year end,” Bambang Hendroyono, the ministry’s director general of forestry business development said.
Indonesia has exported more than US$4.1 billion from 40 kinds of forestry products this year, according to the ministry’s data.
The EU is the second biggest export destination with 9.88% , after Asia, which reached 75.92%.
Before the VPA, the Forestry Ministry launched the timber legality certification scheme (SVLK) in 2003 and made it mandatory in 2010.
All exporters are required to have the certification to ease the way of the forestry products into the EU market.
The scheme has been successful to reduce illegal logging and to boost the export of timber-based products at the same time.
The ministry’s data showed there were 59 illegal logging cases in 2011, a huge decline from 1705 cases in 2006.
Meanwhile, the export of forestry products soared to US$3.48 billion in the first semester of this year, from US$835.18 million during the same period last year.
According to Bambang, since the issuance of the SVLK, the volume of plywood and wood pulp exports has been growing. Therefore the ministry would also use this scheme to convince other countries and propose similar agreements with them.
Among the targeted countries are Australia, the United States, Japan, South Korea and China.
“The first will be Australia, the US and China,” said Bambang.
The ministry planned to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to accommodate the SVLK into Australia’s Illegal Logging Prohibition Act.
Meanwhile the progress with China was one step ahead as the ministry already inked an MoU to handle illegal logging and would approach bilateral agreement on the SVLK.
The ministry would conduct more intense lobbying with the US, South Korea and Japan next October.
However, the scheme also received some negative sentiments from the business players and NGOs regarding the assessors’ credibility, as the Forestry Ministry has authorized 12 private companies to check the timber products and issue the SVLK certification.
“The reports of cheating auditors have been submitted to the Forestry Minister,” said Robianto Koestomo, president director of PT Mutu Hijau Indonesia, one of the verification companies.
Robi, who is also chairman of the Association of Indonesian Wood Panel Producers (Apkindo), urged the government to issue sanctions against them, as there was no action up until now.
The Forestry Ministry also realized the importance of credibility for the SVLK.
“If we have one case [in the legalization system], they will not trust in us anymore, starting from one country, leading to more countries. They will not believe in us anymore,” said Bambang.
Another thing that Robi criticized was the plans from other government agencies to issue other “green” certificates, like from the Industry Minister and Environment Ministry.
