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Ukraine bans unprocessed timber exports for 10 years
April 13, 2015 - Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine banned unprocessed timber export for 10 years. Adoption of the legislative draft, №1362, was favorably voted by 233 deputies while the necessary minimum of votes was 226.
April 13, 2015 By Fordaq
The legislative draft in question stipulates a temporary ban on unprocessed timber exports: all species with the exception of pine – effective January 1, 2016, and for pine unprocessed timber – effective January 1, 2017.
Moreover, according to this law, oak is included in the list of rare and valuable wood species. The law allows exports of those kinds of timber which were not mentioned above, provided that an exported timber has the certificate of origin, with it being issued on the conditions regulated by the Cabinet of Ministers.
Moreover, there will be introduced an online list of issued certificates of origin, which will be available at the State forest agency’s official website.
As reported before, the legislative draft №1362 was favourably voted by 277 deputies in the first reading on February 5, 2015. A number of amendments was introduced to the draft in the second reading.
According to the explanatory note of the draft, roundwood exports are not beneficial for Ukraine, since the average price of unprocessed timber reaches the level of about $80 to 90 per cubic metre at best, while processed timber average price comes up to $950 at the international markets. Thus, law draftsmen state that unprocessed timber accounts for 70 per cent of the Ukrainian total wood exports.
Earlier heads of the regional offices of the State Forest Agency suggested postponing introduction of the export ban until 2018, giving the necessity of investment funds for development and construction as a reason of such a suggestion.
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