Ukraine: Roundwood exports ban favorably voted

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Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine banned unprocessed wood export for 10 years. Adoption of the legislative draft№1362 was favorably voted by 233 deputies while the necessary minimum of votes was 226. 

The legislative draft in question stipulates a temporary ban for the following: unprocessed wood including raw wood, such as roundwood in the form of logs, poles etc. with moisture content exceeding 22% and sawn timber with the thickness exceeding 70 mm and moisture content more than 22%. The ban comes into force for all species with the exception of pine - effective November 1, 2015, and for pine - effective January 1, 2017. Moreover, according to this law, oak is included in the list of rare and valuable wood species. The legislative draft does not mention if oak exports are to be banned. 

The law allows exports of those kinds of wood which were not mentioned above, provided that exported wood has the certificate of origin, with it being issued on the conditions regulated by the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers. 

Moreover, there will be introduced an online list of issued certificates of origin, which will be available at the State forest agency's official website. 

As reported before, the legislative draft №1362 was favourably voted by 277 deputies in the first reading on February 5, 2015. A number of amendments was introduced to the draft in the second reading. 

According to the explanatory note of the draft, roundwood exports are not beneficial for Ukraine, since the average price of unprocessed wood reaches the level of about $80-90 per m3 at best, while processed wood average price comes up to $950 at the international markets. Thus, law draftsmen state that unprocessed wood accounts for 70% of the Ukrainian total wood exports. 

Earlier heads of the regional offices of the State Forest Agency suggested postponing introduction of the export ban until 2018, giving the necessity of investment funds for development and construction as a reason of such a suggestion. 

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