Participants during the meeting

Under the Legislation Support Programme, , Governance and Trade of the European Union Action Plan for Forest Law Enforcement and FAO (EU FAO FLEGT ), the Operators ' Association of Timber (AMOMA ) in partnership with the Faculty of Agronomy and Forestry Engineering of Eduardo Mondlane University ( FAEF -UEM ) and the NGO Bosque y Comunidad (BYC ) held on Wednesday the 3rd roundtable of the project "Strengthening the capacity of key actors in the timber market in Mozambique ,particularly in the private sector for the implementation of the FLEGT Plan Action in the country".

The event was attended by representatives of government institutions, members of AMOMA and CTA, academics, civil society and development partners who discussed strategies to ensure the competitiveness and boost the export of national processed timber.

During the event, higher rates, illegalities in the export process, little control of the tax authorities, lack of qualified industry and difficulties in the reforestation area, were presented as major challenges to the economic viability of forest concessions.

According to the President of AMOMA , Jorge Chacate , "one of the main problems that timber operators face has to do with the lack of competitiveness of the Mozambican timber in regional markets since despite recognizing the high quality of Mozambican timber, it has no place in the regional and international markets for not being competitive".

Chacate also said that "as a result of measures taken in these meetings to implement FAO´s project, some timber operators in the provinces of Cabo Delgado and Zambézia for example, have reported daily illegal acts of timber export."

According to the Head of Community Management of National Forestry Directorate, Teresa Nube to face these practices, "by the government level, there is an ongoing assessment of forest governance which aims to analyze how the management of forest resources in the country is. This assessment is made in a participatory manner where we have actors such as the private sector , communities , the media, NGOs and the timber industry itself , initially in the provinces of Cabo Delgado and Zambézia and then nationally".

This was the third of four round tables involving government representatives and various organizations involved in the timber sector for the implementation of the project EU FAO FLEGT that aims to strengthen the capacities of timber operators nationwide.