The State Forests want to limit the export of Polish timber

The Director General of the State Forests announced that he had submitted a proposal for changes to the law to the Ministry of Climate and Environment, which would result in limiting the export of unprocessed wood from Poland outside the European Union. Witold Koss explained that the proposal assumes changes to the Act on Preserving the National Character of the Country's Strategic Natural Resources, as well as to the Act on Competition and Consumer Protection. – We received a declaration from the Ministry that they will deal with this matter urgently. If there is consent, the changes to the law should enter into force as soon as possible, so that they can be in force from 2025 – Koss said. He added that new rules for the sale of wood will enter into force next year.

Koss informed that the State Forests proposal assumes, among other things, recognizing wood as a strategic raw material. The applicants also proposed to introduce a ban on the export of wood from Poland outside the territory of the EU, member states of the European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA), parties to the agreement on the European Economic Area and the Swiss Confederation for three years – from January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2028. Violations of such a ban would be punishable by penalties of restriction of liberty or fines of up to EUR 5 million. The State Forests pointed out that the Polish timber industry has been complaining for years about the deficit of raw material, amounting to 3-4 million cubic meters per year; the shortage is covered by import. Koss emphasized that the State Forests do not export wood from Poland. – This is done by intermediaries who legally buy raw material from the State Forests and then sell it, among others, to third countries. We have no legal basis to forbid them from doing so – he added.

The State Forests recently reported that 14.3 million tons of unprocessed wood were sold abroad from Poland in 2019-2023, compared to 2.2 million tons last year. Citing the calculations of the Central Statistical Office, the State Forests reported that in 2019-2023 the largest amount of unprocessed wood was exported to German – 5.3 million tons; this constituted 37 percent of exports during that time. In the next place were “other countries”, to which 5.1 million tons of wood were sent (35 percent), and in the next place – China. 4 million tons of wood were imported to the Middle Kingdom in 2019-2023, or 28 percent of exportsIn mid-March this year, the head of the Ministry of Climate and Environment, Paulina Hennig-Kloska, informed about the preparation of nine recommendations by the ministry, which are to limit the export of unprocessed wood from Poland. One of them is to direct a larger pool of wood to regular and long-term customers of the State Forests – those who have a purchase history. It is also about greater bonuses in the sale of wood to those entrepreneurs who will process it to a greater extent in Poland.