The State Duma was submitted a law-in-draft on a long-term moratorium on raw timber exports until December 1, 2035

Raw timber exports as this would contradict with the rules of the World Trade Organization as well as of the international treaties of the Russian Federation, but a ban on harvesting for exports. It is proposed to amend the Law “On Fundamentals of State Regulation of Foreign Trade”.

The lawmakers propose to add the following wording: “Harvesting of wood, split round timber (except for firewood and wood unsuitable for industrial processing), as well as resinous stumpwood and chips until December 31, 2035, is allowed only for the purpose of processing them in the territory of the Russian Federation or using them without processing in the territory of the Russian Federation.”

The explanatory note to the bill states that “such measures are of a high relevance today due to a number of circumstances. Representatives of authorized agencies and state bodies have repeatedly emphasized that the situation in the Russian forest sector is currently critical and the industry is criminalized”, “the volume of illegal harvesting increases by more than 10% every year, and more than half of the forest fund is already harvested in some regions of the Russian Federation”, as well as that “according to the authors of the bill, the only solution to all of the above problems can be the adoption of the measures provided for in this draft federal law – limitation of exports of wood, split round timber, resinous stumpwood, and chips until December 31, 2035”.

This is already the second similar bill submitted to the State Duma for the last year. In May 2018, a group of members of the State Duma presented Bill No. 470635-7 on the introduction of a temporary indirect ban on exports of commercial softwood until December 31, 2030. Consideration of the bill by the State Duma was postponed 15 times.

At the beginning of February 2019, Ivan Valentik, Head of the Federal Forestry Agency of Russia, said that Russia would not prohibit exports of wood to China. “The question of limiting exports to China has never been discussed in the sense of imposing an export ban, but it was only considered in terms of other measures of customs and tariffs regulation,” Ivan Valentik emphasized. “That is, it was necessary to raise duties for roundwood and, respectively, ease or make exporting products of added-value wood processing more profitable.”

According to Ivan Valentik, it is necessary to seriously analyze how timber is exported to China now. “Today, for example, both roughly processed and value-added wood is exported under a single customs code,” the head of Rosleskhoz noted. “This is used by unscrupulous entrepreneurs exporting not roundwood but wood without any added-value processing and thus without serious added cost that could remain in the Russian Federation in the form of taxes, wages, and other sources of income.”

According to the head of Rosleskhoz, the problem of supplying forests to China is somewhat exaggerated. He noted that our trade and economic cooperation with China would continue. At the same time, the Agency will conduct explanatory work – tell Chinese entrepreneurs about how to run business in Russia.