The State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine has said that it is necessary to annul a moratorium on export of unprocessed logs imposed in 2015.
“It is necessary to lift the moratorium, give a free market for logs – this will stimulate price growth and the work of our industry enterprises, and not only those that are coordinated by the State Forest Resources Agency. This will give an impetus to the development of the economy,” Deputy Head of the State Forest Agency Volodymyr Bondar said in a statement of the agency.
According to him, the moratorium on the export of unprocessed logs in the form it was accepted did not give an economic breakthrough, and created a “criminal situation for the state’s economy” in the issue of logs.
“Forestry enterprises today have the remains of 1.2 million cubic meters of logs. We have reduced logging, because we cannot sell what was logged in Ukraine,” Bondar said.
He said that if the legislator wanted to stock logs and give impetus to the development of local business, then this had to be done not through a ban, but through stimulating the development and deepening of processing.
“For this, it is necessary that investments come to Ukraine. Without making any decisions on creating an investment climate in Ukraine, simply banning the export of logs, this only leads to a decrease in the domestic price, a decrease in logging. We do not even remove logs, which we mark in the forest, because it does not have its own consumer,” the deputy head of the State Forest Resources Agency said.
According to Bondar, due to lower prices for logs and the inability to sell it, the question of stopping enterprises of various types arises.
