Preserving wood resources, a difficult problem not only in Quy Hop district

Businesses in trouble, budget loss?

Speaking with Nghe An Newspaper on March 8, a representative of a business in Quy Hop district said that recently, there has been an unhealthy competition in buying and selling acacia wood materials to send to other provinces, leading to difficulties for wood industry businesses.

According to this person, at the meeting of the District Party Committee and the District People's Committee with the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises of Quy Hop district at the end of 2024, this content was also mentioned, and a solution was proposed to be found. He said: “Quy Hop is one of the major acacia wood raw material areas of the province. The profession of growing acacia trees for timber creates income for households, provides raw materials for wood industry enterprises to produce and trade, and has a stable contribution to the budget revenue. Preserving wood materials for production and processing is to preserve the benefits for people, businesses and the local budget, that is the issue we want to talk about when reflecting this situation…”.

On December 24, 2024, the District Party Committee and People's Committee of Quy Hop district had a meeting with the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises in the area. In many recommendations sent to the Party Committee and authorities, the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises of Quy Hop district raised 3 recommendations related to wood industry enterprises:

Firstly, it is recommended that all levels pay attention to developing the forest economy, including encouraging businesses to purchase and deeply process raw materials in the area; taking advantage of raw materials, saving resources in wood processing, including branches and tops to create products, and solving employment for workers.

Second, it is recommended that local authorities promptly confirm that households exploit planted forests to sell to local processing enterprises, in order to create conditions for people to develop raw material planted forests and help local enterprises to legally purchase them.

Third, it is recommended that the current problem of buying and selling raw wood materials in the area for transport to other provinces is chaotic and unfairly competitive, so the relevant agencies need to have strict management to prevent raw materials from being exported out of the area. The reason: "Because in the district there are enterprises with deep processing workshops, fully equipped with machinery and equipment, if there is a shortage of raw materials for processing, the jobs of local workers will be affected, and the budget revenue will be lost, while this is a very legitimate source of revenue for the locality".

In the meeting with the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, the District Party Committee and People's Committee of Quy Hop District answered 3 recommendations from wood industry enterprises. Regarding the third recommendation, although sharing the difficulties with enterprises regarding the competition in purchasing raw materials, the District Party Committee and People's Committee of Quy Hop District determined that in order to manage and prevent the situation where people do not sell raw materials from planted forests to enterprises outside the area, there will be many difficulties and obstacles.

The reason is that people invest their own capital to plant raw material forests on forestry land areas that have been granted land use rights by the State. Therefore, the exchange and sale are completely decided by the people, following the market mechanism, as long as such activities do not violate the law.

However, the District Party Committee and People's Committee of Quy Hop district pledged to direct departments, branches and People's Committees of communes to strengthen propaganda and mobilize people to accompany and support local businesses, and limit the sale of raw materials to businesses outside the area.

On the other hand, it is recommended that businesses research and develop production and business in the direction of focusing on deeply processed products, investing in modern technological lines, and increasing the value of raw material purchases so that people can see the competitive advantage in providing wood materials for businesses in the area.

Issues of concern

The whole Quy Hop district has about 68,364.95 hectares of forestry land, of which 31,139.42 hectares are natural forests; 17,828.85 hectares are planted forests; 18,328.54 hectares are non-forested forestry land.

According to Vice Chairman of Quy Hop District People's Committee Quan Vi Giang, Quy Hop District is one of the localities with a large forestry land fund in the province, so for many years, the District Party Committee and the District People's Committee have determined that forest economic development plays an important role in socio-economic development, national defense, security, job creation and social security. Therefore, they always pay attention to, create conditions and support for forest product processing enterprises and people growing raw material forests.

This is confirmed by the fact that the Standing Committee of the District Party Committee issued Resolution No. 17-NQ/HU dated March 28, 2022 to promote the development of high-quality intensive forest planting material areas associated with the granting of Sustainable Forest Management Certificates and forest product processing industry for the period 2021 - 2025 in Quy Hop district; The District People's Committee has also issued many related documents, at the same time, always paying attention to and accompanying businesses to remove difficulties and obstacles.

Specifically, on July 19, 2024, the Provincial People's Committee issued Official Dispatch No. 6089/UBND-NN directing the implementation of overcoming existing problems and limitations in wood chip processing and chopping activities. Immediately after that, Quy Hop district requested the Provincial People's Committee and relevant departments and branches to pay attention to studying and considering adjustments and creating favorable conditions in terms of mechanisms and policies to support wood chip processing and chopping enterprises in the area to complete documents and procedures, thereby stabilizing production, contributing to the consumption of raw materials from planted forests in the area, creating jobs for local workers, and contributing to the budget.

Mr. Quan Vi Giang said that every year, the whole district exploits about 2,000 hectares of acacia, collecting about 165,000 tons of raw acacia wood; regarding wood industry enterprises, they pay the budget through value added tax and corporate income tax with an amount of about 15 billion VND. Vice Chairman of Quy Hop District People's Committee Quan Vi Giang also discussed: "The competition to purchase raw acacia wood to send to other provinces is real, and Quy Hop district also recognizes that this situation leads to an impact on budget revenue. However, to solve it is not simple...".

Going back in time to 2024, we organized to grasp the reality of wood production and processing activities in the province (informed in the article "The “hidden” problems behind illegal wood chip factories”, Nghe An electronic newspaper, July 9, 2024).

Through this, it is known that enterprises from other provinces, especially from Thanh Hoa province, have been and are "absorbing" a large source of acacia wood materials from the province. These enterprises mostly set up wood chip production facilities close to Nghe An, on the Ho Chi Minh trail, National Highway 1A and Nghi Son Port, which is very convenient for purchasing and transporting wood materials and wood chips.

According to the reporter's investigation, the reason why Nghe An acacia is sold in large quantities to Thanh Hoa is because: Thanh Hoa's wood processing enterprises have strong financial potential, are willing to buy at higher prices in the style of "cash, real rice", no debt. Besides, enterprises in Thanh Hoa have also built a large network of purchasing agents. People need to sell, they will come to buy directly, pay and then exploit.

Talking to reporters, a trader specializing in selling glue to Nghi Son area, Thanh Hoa said that at this time, the price of glue in Nghe An is about 50 thousand VND/ton lower than Thanh Hoa. Each truck carrying about 50 tons of glue to Thanh Hoa, traders will make about 2 - 2.5 million VND more profit. Therefore, traders are willing to buy Nghe An glue to sell in Thanh Hoa.

This has actually led to difficulties in raw material sources for the province's wood processing enterprises and budget losses.

Therefore, the problem of "preserving" the source of wood materials needs to be addressed by competent authorities to help the wood processing industry develop in line with its forestry potential and advantages, making a commensurate contribution to the socio-economic development of the province.