HANOI, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam is forecast to exceed its target of earning 7.5 billion U.S. dollars from wood exports in 2017, according to local experts on Thursday.
Statistics from the country's General Statistics Office showed that in the first quarter (Q1) this year, wood exports reached 1.78 billion U.S. dollars in revenue, up 17.1 percent year-on-year.
Insiders pointed out that Vietnam wood exports will be facilitated by several free trade agreements (FTA), especially the Vietnam-South Korea FTA. In Q1, Vietnam earned some 143.8 million U.S. dollars in wood export to South Korea, up 16.6 percent year-on-year.
In 2015, despite the whole industry's modest growth rate of 1.1 percent, Vietnma's wood exports to South Korea posted a revenue rise of 15.3 percent thanks to the positive impacts of their bilateral FTA, reported Cong Thuong newspaper.
Vietnam aims to lift the export revenue of wooden products to 10 billion U.S. dollars by 2020.
