Vietnamese woodwork companies are forecast to face possibly stagnant operations in 2009 due to dollar shortage and its high value, that present them from importing timbers for processing, state media reported on June 6.
The Vietnam Economy and Cooperation newspaper cited Nguyen Ton Quyen, vice chairman of the Vietnam Woodwork and Forestry Products Association, as saying that without dollars, local companies can not import timber materials, which account for 80 per cent of their demand.
“Current, we have enough timbers for operation by the year’s end, but with dollar shortage, and VND/USD exchange rate surpassing VND18,000 at open market, we do not know how to run next year,” Quyen said.
Analysts forecast Vietnamese companies will need more than US$500 million in the remaining quarters of 2008 to import timbers. In the first five months of this year, they had spent US$474 million on the imports, up 23.4 per cent on year.
Quyen said local companies usually seek to import timber in the third and fourth quarter yearly.
Vietnam is now leading in the world in importing hard timber. In 2007, the country spent more than US$800 million on importing nearly 3 million cubic meters of timber for processing and re-exports.
The country’s demand for timber imports are estimated to reach nearly 3.5 million cubic meters this year.
Its main exporters included Malaysia, Laos, China, the US, Thailand and New Zealand.
The U.S is still the biggest importer of Vietnamese woodwork, with total export revenues hitting US$264.6 million in the first four months of this year, up 11.2 per cent on year, but lower than the rise of 31.2 per cent in 2006 and 26.9 per cent in 2007. (Vietnam Economy & Cooperation)
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