Forestry Resources and Policies News

l A draft revision of the forest law was submitted to the standing committee of the 13th National People's Congress for its initial deliberation on June 25. The draft specifies that the cutting quota shall be examined and approved by the current provincial government and submitted to the State Council for approval, while the revision shall be approved by the provincial government and submitted to the State Council for filing. The draft deleted some contents, such as the timber transport certificate and the timber production plan. 
l Since 2018, the Ministry of Finance has been requiring local governments to reduce the subsidy standard of China-Europe railway trains: based on the full freight rate, the subsidy shall not exceed 50% of the freight rate in 2018, 40% in 2019 and 30% in 2020. At present, subsidy standards in related regions are basically USD3000/car(tank), which is equivalent to about RMB 20,000.
l In 2018, China put 11 fiberboard production lines into operation, with an additional capacity of 19.95 million cubic meters per year; and 25 particleboard production lines were put into production, with an additional capacity of 3.895 million cubic meters per year.
l In the first five months of this year, the production of wood-based panels in Guangdong declined. The plywood production was 1.081 million cubic meters, down 4.5% year-on-year. The medium and high density fiberboard production was 1,239,000 cubic meters, down 5% year-on-year. The particle board production was 756,800 cubic meters, down 26.6% year-on-year.
l The department of natural resources, federal government of Canada will invest 8.5 million Canadian dollars (about 44.2 million RMB) to support Canada wood in overseas markets exhibition project, which aims at the Asia-pacific market including China, Japan and South Korea for showing their advanced environmentally friendly wood building technology and its application in the mixed timber construction, building assembly, residential, public and commercial buildings.
l Recently, the foreign trade and tariff protection measures committee of the Russian federal government has submitted a proposal to eliminate the export quota system of birch logs.