The professionals started meeting yesterday in Yaounde to lay down a strategy to promote the development of a viable forest industry in Central Africa.
Africa’s contribution to the global trade of tropical forest products with high added value is very weak and stands around one per cent as compared to that of South East Asia, 83 per cent, or Latin America, 16 per cent, despite the presence of huge forest resources. This striking revelation was made yesterday by Emmanuel Ze Meka, the Executive Director of the International Tropical Timber Organisation, ITTC, in his opening speech at the start of a two-day sub-regional seminar jointly organised in Yaounde by the ITTC, the Food and Agricultural Organisation, FAO, and the Inter-African Association of Forest Industries, IFIA, to set up a strategy to promote the development of the forestry industries in the Congo Basin.
African Industries, Emmanuel Ze Meka said, spent 4,4 billion US dollars to import wood products in 2007, but only10 per cent of these imports came from Africa. He also revealed that most countries in the Central African sub-region had attained levels of processing above 70 per cent although the products were limited to sawn wood and plywood. The 2008 economic crisis, he concluded, highlighted the importance of local and regional markets as shelters to local industries in times of crisis.
Speaking earlier, the President of the IFIA, Hervé Bourguignon, explained that the forestry industry in Africa had worked hard during the past five years to render its modes of forestry exploitation more sustainable. “The results are there. In five years, Cameroon, Gabon and the Republic of Congo own more than 4,5 million hectares of certified forests. More than 10 per cent of this is allocated to industrial exploitation. In the Congo Basin, 5 million more hectares have received legality certificates,” he said. He further praised governments for their involvement in the improvement of forestry governance, commitment in the fight against illegal forest exploitation as well as the signing of voluntary partnership agreements with the European Union. He prescribed the creation of good business climates by all States to attract more investors.
On his part, the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife, Elvis Ngolle Ngolle underscored the importance of the forests in the economies of countries of the Congo Basin. “Unfortunately, studies show that exports of forestry products from the Congo Basin have remained essentially focused on logs and products from the first level of processing, illustrating a weak forest industry in the concerned countries,” he said, while presenting Cameroon’s efforts in improving on wood processing.
The workshop continued with several presentations and ends today with group working sessions and recommendations for the strategy. New partnership agreements will be signed tomorrow between the FAO and five organisations in the forestry sector that participated in the execution of the European Union’s action plan.
