Binh Dinh (VNA) –Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung has ordered tightening the control ofchanges in the use of forests while strictly enforcing the closure of naturalforests at a conference of the steering committee for sustainable developmentof the forestry sector.

The steering committee for thenational target programme on sustainable development of the forestry sector(Programme 886) held a conference in the central province of Binh Dinh on March29.

Deputy Minister of Agricultureand Rural Development Ha Cong Tuan reported to the conference that the forestrysector had achieved or overfulfilled all set targets in 2018. The nationalforest coverage expanded by 0.2 percent from the previous year to 41.65percent, with 231,520 ha of concentrated forests planted, surpassing target by18 percent. Total forestry production value exceeded 32 trillion VND (1.38 billionUSD).

There are around 4,500enterprises operating in processing wood and forest products, with 1,863 ofthem directly involved in export. Vietnam’s wood products have been exported to120 countries and territories, with main markets being the US, Japan, EU, Chinaand the Republic of Korea. The forestry sector earned 9.38 billion USD fromexports in 2018, up 15.9 percent year on year.

However, many problems remain,such as deforestation and illegal transport and storing of forest products, whichare attributable to the poor performance of local authorities, especially thosein the northern provinces of Dien Bien and Bac Kan and the Central Highlands.

The northwestern and centralhighlands regions have large areas of forest land but the pace of forestation inthose regions is slower than in others. The planting of protective andspecial-use forests faced great difficulties due to the shortage of capital andland.

According to Dinh Ngoc Minh,deputy director of the Agriculture Department under the Ministry of Planningand Investment, after three years of implementation, four out of the 16 tasksset by Programme 886 have been completed two years ahead of schedule, fiveother tasks have had 90 percent of the workload done and the remaining sevenare being conducted on schedule.

The Ministry of Planning andInvestment has asked the Government to instruct local administrations toallocate sufficient capital from the central budget and mobilize investmentfrom other legal sources for projects in forest protection and development.

According to the office ofProgramme 886, the targets set for 2019 are to expand the national forestcoverage to 41.85 percent, increase forestry production value by 5.5-6 percentand export value to 10.5 billion USD, while maintaining stable employment for25 million people.-VNA