(KPL) The central province of Quang Nam and its neighbouring Sekong province of Laos had jointly built 28 out of 60 border markers along 142 km of their common borderline
Laos - Vietnam border post installed
After one year implementing the Prime Minister’s Directive on accelerating the building of more border markers and upgrading of existing markers along the Vietnam-Laos border, the joint working team of Quang Nam and Sekong have demarcated 44 out of 60 locations for new border markers, as well as clearing land mines at 19 locations and along more than 83 km of roads serving the building of border markers, in addition to the construction.
It was a difficult mission with the majority of the sites situated over 1,000m above sea level in mountainous terrain.
Despite all these difficulties, Quang Nam provincial People’s Committee Vice Chairman Dinh Van Thu pledged to work closely with Se Kong province of Laos in demarcating the locations of the remaining border markers, as set for 2011.
So far the joint border marker team has completed profiles of 18 new border markers and handed them over to border guard forces for management.
The Vietnamese military was heavily involved in trafficking the timber to Vietnam. The forest cover in Laos has declined sharply over recent decades from over 60 percent in the 1960s to around 40 percent today. Posted: Jul 28, 2011 7:21 PM Updated: Jul 30, 2011 9:02 AM By DENIS D. GRAY
BANGKOK (AP) - Despite an export ban, Vietnamese companies are smuggling logs from the once rich forests of Laos to feed a billion-dollar wood industry that turns timber into furniture for export to the Europe and the United States, an environmental group said Thursday.
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency alleged that the Vietnamese military was heavily involved in bribing Lao officials and then trafficking the timber on a massive scale to wood processing factories in neighboring Vietnam. This was denied by the government and military.
Laos, with some of the last intact tropical forests in the region, in 1999 slapped a ban on the export of raw timber and says it is expanding its forest cover. But there are widespread reports of rampant logging, often associated with the country's mushrooming dam projects and agricultural plantations.
"Vietnam is almost annexing areas of Laos to feed its own industries. The only winners in Laos are corrupt government officials and well-connected businessmen," Julian Newman, an EIA staffer, said at a news conference. The group focuses on environmental crime worldwide.
In an undercover operation in 2010 and 2011, the group said it tracked logs in Laos obtained by three Vietnamese enterprises as they made their way across the porous border to factories in Vietnam. It estimates the enterprises yearly smuggle some 8.8 million cubic feet (250,000 cubic meters) of wood worth some $80 million.
One of the three was identified as the Vietnamese Company of Economic Cooperation, or COECCO, an enterprise run by the Vietnamese army and headquartered in the city of Vinh. The company has been in the logging business in Laos for two decades, EIA said.
But officials for the company in Vietnam said it had a license from the Lao government to import logs, obtaining them in exchange for roads and irrigation projects it has built in the country.
The company announced on its website last month the opening of bids for more than 1.2 million cubic feet (34,000 cubic meters) of logged limber imported from Laos. The officials declined to give their names, citing policy.
The Lao government, as part of its 2020 forestry strategy, says that it will "strictly implement the export ban on logs and sawn timber." The ban is covered in a 1999 law and a number of subsequent government orders.
Commenting on the military company's imports, Newman said it may have engineered a "one-off deal" because of its close ties with powerful Lao officials.
International aid agencies in Laos frequently complain that provincial power brokers often make their own business deals with foreign companies, sometimes in contravention to central government laws and regulations.
Video shot by EIA showed trucks hauling piles of logs from Laos into Vietnam and featured both Lao and Vietnamese businessmen talking about bribing Lao government officials to allow the illegal exports. EIA says its investigators posed as potential buyers.
Laos' export ban is also routinely flouted by companies supplying the wood industries of neighboring Thailand and China, EIA said.
EIA first exposed the illegal cross-border trade in 2008 and said that little has changed on the ground since, although the Vietnamese government is moving toward some kind of control.
"By the time the deals (with EU and others) are signed, there won't be any forests left in Laos. Vietnam needs to get its act together and move quickly," Newman said.
The report released this week says Vietnam's booming timber industry, worth $4 billion a year in exports, drives illegal logging in Laos, which has some of the last intact tropical forests in the Mekong region.
Group Links Vietnam Military to Illegal Logging in LaosThursday, July 28th, 2011 at 10:30 am UTCPosted 1 day ago A London-based environmental group accuses the Vietnamese military of playing a key role in the illicit lumber trade between Vietnam and Laos. Environmental Group Links Vietnam's Military to Laos Timber ...
In a statement to VOA, a spokeswoman for Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs denies the country's military is involved in smuggling timber from Laos. The spokeswoman says Vietnam strictly forbids illegal timber smuggling and logging.
In 1997 Vietnam banned most domestic logging, and now imports 80 percent of its timber supplies.
The EIA report says timber imports have soared from $123 million in 2000 to over $1 billion in 2008.
Lao officials have said in recent months that they are stepping up efforts to halt the illegal timber trade. In June, Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong issued an order to strengthen measures against illegal logging and timber smuggling.
But EIA says despite the laws, the situation is "chaotic and prone to corruption."
Forest cover in Laos has declined sharply over recent decades from over 60 percent in the 1960s to around 40 percent today.
28 July 2011 Last updated at 14:48 G
BBC South East Asia correspondent http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14328213 By Rachel Harvey July 28, 2011 5:21 AM
Lao forests feeding Vietnam industry, group says (AP) BANGKOK — Despite an export ban, Vietnamese companies are smuggling logs from the once rich forests of Laos to feed a billion-dollar wood industry that turns timber into furniture for export to the Europe and the United States, an environmental group said Thursday. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/28/ap/asia/main20084628.sht
