Project/activity information

Legality requirements and timber procurement policies are being introduced in many countries. These requirements and policies are principally aimed at addressing public concerns about the legal and environmental credentials of products. Many purchasers are demanding that products should come from sustainable, or at least legal, sources and that this be verifiable in order to maintain credibility with buyers in the market place.

These requirements and policies have significant implications for tropical timber importers and manufacturers. As developments are occurring at a rapid rate, there is an urgent need for tropical wood product importers and manufacturers to monitor these developments, assess the costs in meeting these requirements and explore the market implications and opportunities presented by these developments.

This proposal aims to raise the capacity of SMEs and importers of tropical timber in Yangtze River Delta to understand and prepare procurement strategies and business plans to take into account the development of CITES Appendices, with a view to improving market transparency and promoting the trade in tropical timber from sustainably managed and legally harvested forests

Corollary to this objective, the main outputs of this small project proposal are:

• A report entitled “Analysis of trends and impact on China’s timber trade of commercial timbers included in CITES”.
• A mobile web and web-based communication platform for information dissemination and exchange on the updated CITES information.
• Training workshops for 100 representatives from SMEs and importers in the project area.