According to the latest issued law, the taxes for the import of wood manufacturing machines and for the export of wooden products will be annuled.
The biggest struggle is with the wood industry mafia, which currently represents a major threat for this industry.
The police from the Vyatsj region has successfully completed the „Les – 2008” operation, by discovering 46 illegal cuttings in the forests, opening 61 criminal records and confiscating 2 727 000 rubles worth of raw wood.
Forests are being cut illegaly in all the regions of the Russian Federation.In the Kyrovsk region alone, 500 hectares of forest were cut down last year. According to a study put together by Minspriroda , on the entire teritory of the Russian Federation 21 million m³ of forest are cut down, which is almost 10%-15% of the total cuttings.
In their attempt to stop this phenomenon, the Russian authorities have increased the custom taxes for raw wood export from 6.5% (in 2006) to 25%, and they are expected to rise again, from the 1st of January 2009 – up to 80%.
The Forest Police has also been established. The regions placed under their supervision have a wood industry economical crime discovery rate twice as high.
More and more laws and projects are being issued to descourage log export and encourage the export of manufactured wooden products.
Thus, Russia could increase it’s wood export income from 10 billion$/year up to 120-140 billions. |
