Hanoi – Vietnam plans to earn some 10 billion U.S. dollars from exporting wood and its products by 2020, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Under an action plan on developing the wood market for 2014-2020, Vietnam is set to increase production, trading value of forests and sustainable forestry development.

Nguyen Ton Quyen, general secretary of the Vietnam Timber and Forest Product Association, said on Friday that Vietnam is likely to meet the set target of 10 billion U.S. dollars worth of wood export by 2020 thanks to bright prospects of Vietnam’s major markets including the United States, China, the European Union and Japan.

Vietnam hopes to finish the negotiation to join the Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2014. Once joining the TPP, the country will benefit greatly as taxes on Vietnam’s wood and wood products will be reduced in many of its major markets such as the United States, Japan and Australia, Quyen said.

According to the latest official report, Vietnam pocketed 384 million U.S. dollars from wood exports in May, bringing the total amount for January-May to 2.34 billion U.S. dollars, up 14.2 percent year-on-year.

The United States, China and Japan maintained the three largest importers of Vietnamese wood in the first four months of 2014, accounting for 66.16 percent of the total wood export revenue.

In 2013, Vietnam’s forestry export revenue hit 5.7 billion U.S. dollars, up 19.2 percent year-on-year, which accounted for 4.3 percent of the global market share, ranking the sixth worldwide. Source: Xinhua