Statistics from Vietnam Customs shows that exports of wood and wood products (W&WP) during April 2020 were worth US$697 million, down by a third compared to March but 19% higher than in April 2019.

April wood product exports, in particular, fell sharply dropping around 35% to US$434 million against previous month and by 25% compared to April 2019. Despite the declines in April W&WP exports remain in the top 6 groups of Vietnamese export commodities.

In the first four months of this year WP exports alone amounted to US$2.272 billion, up by 2% compared to the same period in 2019 and accounted for 69% of total W&WP exports, down slightly year on year.

In previous years exports to the US, the top buyer of Vietnam’s W&WP accounted for around 50% of total exports but in the four months to April this dropped by 39%.

With the pandemic yet prevailing in US and several EU countries and the global economy facing a severe crisis exports of W&WP and NWFP will fail to reach the target of over US$12 billion set for 2020 (in 2019, exports of W&WP plus NTFP was reported at US$11.18 billion).

Due to the impact of the pandemic on global trade, April 2020 W&WP exports to the main markets dropped compared to previous months. However, in the first four months of 2020, W&WP exports to the EU and China were still rising, by 13% in the case of the EU and by 23% in the case of China. However, this growth is unlikely to be sustainable.