Published on: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 |
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia and the European Union (EU) hope to sign a bilateral voluntary partnership agreement(VPA), to promote the trade in legally produced and harvested timber.
The agreement would help ensure the sustainability and legality of timber production while improving the perception of tropical timber in Europe.
The Ambassador and Head of Delegation of the European Commission (EC) here in Malaysia, Vincent Piket said the EU, a significant consumer of timber products, shared the responsibility of tackling illegal logging and related trade with producer countries.
In order to build the commitment and fight against illegally-logged timber, he said the European Commission had taken the initiative to develop its own Forest Law Enforcement, Government and Trade (FLEGT) action plan.
"The plan aims to eliminate imports of illegally-harvested timber and timber products into the EU and support progress towards sustainable forest management," he told Bernama here.
According to Piket, he was very happy with the latest round of negotiations with Malaysia.
"Thanks to the high level of commitment from the Malaysian side, we have made good progress. If we can resolve the few remaining issues, then an agreement should be ready by the end of this year.
"That is also the goal and wish of the lead negotiator on the Malaysian side, Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui, who is also the Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities," he said.
Piket said if an agreement was concluded, Malaysia would be the first country in Asia to have one with the EU and the benefits are two-fold.
He said, it would firstly establish a mechanism to promote the sustainable use of Malaysia's forests and therefore contribute to biodiversity.
This in turn would contribute to the fight against climate change, he added.
Secondly, Piket said through the agreement, Malaysian timber exporters would have an advantaged position on the EU market.
He explained that in the near future, the EU would put in place safeguards against the import of illegally harvested timber as consumers did not want it.
He said the FLEGT label would give Malaysian timber better access to the EU market as exporters would not have any further need to prove the sustainability and legality of their wood.
"That is an important advantage for the timber trade," he said.
At the moment, he said there was already a very sizeable amount of 600 million euros annually in timber exports from Malaysia to the EU.
Elaborating on the negotiations, Piket pointed out that there was a lot of technical work to be done and involving a detailed assessment of the legality assessment system applied in Malaysia.
" Right now, we have a number of independent experts doing an analysis of how the Malaysian authorities and private sector assess the legality of Malaysian wood.
The results will be tabled for discussion in October.If there are any gaps in the assessment, we will try and remedy it," he said. - Bernama
