Ministries’ different interpretations, wood imports get stuck
The Vietnam Agriculture and Forestry Investment and Development Company in Hanoi is one of the two enterprises that signed a contract on importing 20,000 cubic meters of wood from Cambodia. Cambodian authorities approved the export of the volume of wood to Vietnam in 2011-2012. The Dak Nong provincial People’s Committee has licensed the import, releasing a decision to open an auxiliary border gate for the imports to go through. However, the wood imports still cannot enter Vietnam, because the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) believes that the company doesn’t have necessary conditions to import wood. … MOIT has, once again, affirmed that the import can be implemented only if it is licensed by the ministry. Meanwhile, MOIT will only grant license after it receives the document from the Cambodian Ministry of Trade, saying that it allows exporting the wood consignment. After getting the license from MOIT, businessmen can import products through one of the 14 national and international border gates, or auxiliary border gates. … The disagreement among the relevant ministries on the wood import licensing has made enterprises suffer, because they cannot import materials for their production plans until the ministries can reach a consensus on the issue. …
