Thursday afternoon NHLA, along with AHEC, the Hardwood Federation and several other hardwood trade associations and industry leaders participated in a conference call with APHIS Deputy Administrator Osama El-Lissy and his staff. The call was convened to discuss the developing situation in China regarding the ramped up inspections of containers with untreated logs. The Deputy Administrator started the call by recapping the issue in which the Chinese General Administration on Customs (GACC) announced that treatment of raw logs in country will no longer be allowed at Chinese ports and that logs fumigated in Hong Kong will no longer be allowed entry into mainland ports.
Deputy Administrator El-Lissy announced the he and his team have been in discussions with Chinese officials to resolve the situation with untreated logs and continue trade in these products with as little interruption as possible. Based on these discussions, China has agreed to allow for in-country fumigation for shipments that are currently on the water (prior to May 2, 2018) provided that the exporting company can demonstrate that it has successfully exported logs to China in the past. This concession does not apply to future shipments, however, and so negotiations with the Chinese government on this matter continue.
To facilitate collection of shipment information to demonstrate successful export transactions with China in the past, APHIS staff has created two spreadsheet templates (which are attached below):
1.
Hardwood logs (with bark) to China currently on the water, which should contain all hardwood log (with bark) shipments to China currently on the water as of May 2, 2018. CLICK HERE for the spreadsheet.
2.
Hardwood logs (with bark) to China in 2017-2018, which should contain a history of hardwood log (with bark) shipments to China in 2017 and so far in 2018.
They have requested that shippers populate the spreadsheet and return to Tyrone Jones at
[email protected]
- at APHIS by close of business (Eastern Standard Time) on Friday, May 11. They will compile all the submissions and share them with the GACC.
NHLA will continue to monitor the situation along with our trade association partners and we will keep the industry informed on developments as they occur.
