China's Timber Industry Must Improve to WTO Standards
Copyright 2000 Asia Pulse Pte Limited
December 11, 2000
BEIJING, Dec 11 - China's timber industry must focus on technical innovation to increase product variety, minimize environmental damage, and improve quality standards before its entry in to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), government experts have said.
At a recent symposium on the development of timber industry in the new century, Wang Kai, president of the China Society of Forestry's timber industry sub-branch, listed the following main challenges facing the industry:
1. Shortage of forest resources.
Currently, China has about 1.4 billion cubic meters of exploitable forest resources. But the annual consumption of timber is about 250 million cubic meters and the per capita consumption averages 0.22 cubic meters, only about 34.8 percent of the world's average of 0.65 cubic meters.
Since the start of the protection of natural forests and ban on logging, the logging of natural forest should be reduced by 41 percent, from an estimated 18.53 million cubic meters in 1997 to 11.02 million cubic meters in 2003. In particular, the logging of endangered large-caliber linden and Manchurian trees must be drastically reduced to avoid environmental catastrophe.
At the same time, there exists huge waste of timber in the country. The comprehensive utilization rate of timber is only 60 percent as against 80-90 percent in developed countries.
2. Higher standards for timber products and environmental protection.
The international organization on construction standards will release higher standards, such as bigger room space and higher fire-retarding performance for timber products, while the world environmental protection organizations will produce new standards, too.
3. Slow progress in technology and imperfect innovation mechanism.
Zhang Jiurong, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Forest Sciences, called for greater efforts to protect timber production focusing on timber drying, anti-corrosion and maintenance. China's railway departments have carried out protection treatment of their 23 million cubic meters of sleeper and poles and achieved good results in extending the lifespan. Their work has helped the country save about 100 million cubic meters of timber.
China's present protection treatment of timber is less than 1 percent of the log output.