Raising timber exports via ties with council
Copyright 2000
Business Times (Malaysia)
December 13, 2000
By Fadzil Ghazali
MALAYSIA is banking on its new collaboration with Mexico-based Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to further expand the country's export of timber products to Europe.
At present, the FSC's timber certification scheme is widely recognised by the European consumers, making it difficult for Malaysian products to establish a strong foothold there.
Although Malaysia has its own certification, issued by the National Timber Certification Council of Malaysia (NTCC), it has not been successful in breaking FSC's spell over the Europeans.
NTCC chief executive officer Chew Lye Teng said Europe is a significant market for Malaysia and that is why efforts are being made to further develop it.
"It's a high-value market and consistent in terms of demands. As such, it is important and the export volume potential is substantial," he told Business Times in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
He said the FSC's label is strongly supported by the European market and its influence is further strengthened by the active movement of the non- governmental organisations (NGOs) there.
"For markets in the UK and Germany, these NGOs have even formed buyers' groups that strongly supported FSC's timber certification scheme. It will be good if we could align our scheme to FSC's," he added.
Towards this end, the NTCC has made further progress in its collaboration with the FSC to align Malaysian forest management standards with FSC requirements.
At an international workshop held in the capital early this month, 180 participants unanimously endorsed the move.
The workshop was jointly organised by the NTCC, FSC, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Malaysia, the Tropical Forest Trust (TFT) and the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ).
Participants represented the timber industry, social and environmental NGOs, research and academic institutions and government agencies.
The NTCC has formulated standards for sustainable forest management based on criteria and indicators developed by the International Tropical Timber Organisation. Forest managers who comply with these standards will have their forest certified under the Malaysian scheme.
Chew said an agreement between NTCC and FSC will enable Malaysian certified timber products to carry not only the NTCC label, but also the FSC label which enjoys widespread recognition in Europe.
The two-day workshop agreed to set up a national steering committee within the next few weeks to work out a framework of collaboration with FSC. The committee will comprise 24 members, selected from social and environmental NGOs, the timber industry, forest managers and the Government.
Chew said the pursuit to link up the NTCC certification scheme with FSC will be carried out in two stages.
The first stage involves the national steering committee, which will look into the viability of the proposal and determine the manner in which it can be implemented.
The second stage will involve the formation of a working group to establish the NTCC-FSC timber certification scheme.
Chew said although there is a slight variation between the NTCC and FSC timber certification schemes, the main principles are similar.
"Both NTCC and FSC are committed to the promotion of forest management that is economically viable, socially beneficial and environmentally appropriate," he added.