Viet Nam and EU agree in principal on FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement
Rome, Italy - FAO has welcomed the news that Viet Nam and the European Union (EU) have agreed in principle on a bilateral trade agreement to address illegal logging and promote the legal timber trade. The two parties have been negotiating the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) under the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan for six years. Viet Nam and the EU expect to ratify the agreement in 2017.
Once the VPA is fully implemented, Viet Nam’s shipments of timber and timber products to the EU will be accompanied by a FLEGT licence, demonstrating the legal origin of these products.
As FLEGT-licensed products automatically meet the requirements of the EU Timber Regulation, Viet Nam’s timber and timber products will not be subject to the due diligence provisions of the EU Timber Regulation, which prohibits the placing of illegal timber on the EU market. In 2014, the timber trade between Viet Nam and the EU was worth USD 705 million.
In recent years the FAO FLEGT Programme has been supporting Viet Nam to ensure stakeholder consultations during VPA negotiations and to prepare smallholders and private sector for VPA implementation. FAO support has included projects to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations to effectively monitor the impact of future VPA implementation.
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EU and Vietnam agree in principle on timber trade deal