According to a market research on wood processing market of Vietnam by Forest Trend, in the first five months of this year, the number of new foreign direct investment (FDI) projects in wood industry totaled 49 projects, of which there were 32 projects belonging to wood processing field.

The remaining FDI projects investing in wood industry included woodchip manufacturing, timber services, wooden pallets, supporting industry of wood industry, artificial wood boards and wood pellets. According to Mr. To Xuan Phuc from Forest Trend, China led the list of countries investing in the wood industry of Vietnam. In the first five months of this year alone, more than US$50 million from new projects of China were registered to invest in Vietnam, 1.7 times higher than the same period last year.

However, it is noticeably that investment capital scale was merely $2.1 million per project, compared to $4.2 million per project in the same period last year. The Handicraft and Wood Industry Association of Ho Chi Minh City (HAWA) warned that enterprises in wood industry should be alert to find out what are opportunities and what are potential risks. Local enterprises must not abet FDI firms which merely invest to change or fake origin of export products so as to avoid being hit by tariffs themselves.