Asian Economic Crisis Upsets African Timber Trade
4/8/98
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Title: Asian Economic Crisis Upsets African Timber Trade
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 4/8/98
Byline: Desire Alladoum
BANGUI - Africa's timber industry is likely to feel the squeeze from the
continuing economic crisis in Southeast Asia, which takes half of its exports,
the secretary-general of the African Timber Organisation (ATO) said.
Mohamed Lawal Garba said the pinch could take two forms: it could increase
competition from Asian timber, made more competitive by currency devaluations,
and could force African producers to rely more on the stricter European market.
European customer demands for evidence of environmentally friendly forestry
would renew pressure on African producers to step up certification procedures
and monitoring of forestry companies, he told Reuters in an interview this week
ahead of a ministerial meeting of the ATO.
"Moves towards certification of African wood products have stalled somewhat
in recent years," Garba said, adding that this was partly because of a rise in
demand from Asian countries which were less concerned with certification.
"Now, countries with environmental concerns like Britain, Germany and the
Netherlands, which are also major buyers of African wood, as well as green
NGOs (non-governmental organisations), could use the Asian crisis as a way
of stepping up pressure for certification," he said.
The ATO, whose headquarters are in Libreville, Gabon, groups 13 countries:
Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria,
Sao Tome and Principe and Tanzania.
Benin, Guinea and Togo have recently applied to join.
Some member countries, like Ghana, Ivory Coast and Nigeria, have imposed
restrictions on the timber trade, partly for ecological reasons and partly,
where the export of unprocessed logs has been banned, to help stimulate local
industry.
Others, like Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, continued to step up
log exports right up until the onset of the Asian crisis in mid-1997.
The ATO has been trying since 1980 to persuade member countries to reduce their
log exports by 50 percent and increase the volume of processed wood, but to no
great effect.
Garba said there would be a question mark over the sector for as long as the
Asian crisis lasted, but he hoped some of the slack would be taken up by demand
from the building and furniture industry in north America and possibly Japan.
(C) Reuters Limited 1998.