05 March 2010

Workshop on Emerging Trade Measures in Timber Markets - Geneva, 23 March 2010

Background
Increasingly, timber is a globally traded commodity, along with its derived products. Trade flows, especially of processed timber goods, have grown over the last decades, In this context, some stakeholders believe that despite attempts to minimize obstacles to the free flow of timber products, emerging measures, notably non-tariff ones, are increasingly affecting trade in these products. However, others feel that challenges facing the sector, such as forest degradation and loss, bio-diversity impoverishment, promotion of sustainable management of forests and climate change warrant new thinking.
After discussing this dilemma at its annual market discussions in 2009, the UNECE Timber Committee called for a “multi-stakeholder workshop in 2010, dedicated to tariff and non-tariff trade barriers and emerging trade regulations on timber”. This one-day workshop co-organized with the Economic Research and Statistics Division of the WTO Secretariat will be held on 23 March 2010, just before the meeting of the FAO/UNECE Working Party on Forest Economics and Statistics.

Objectives
Led by expert presentations, workshop participants will discuss the economic impacts of trade and trade-related measures on timber markets, taking into account the role of trade in timber markets and the link between trade liberalization and key challenges facing the forest-based sector. The programme will allow ample time for discussion and frank exchanges of views, aiming at a broader appreciation of the situation.