Russia postpones timber tariffs until 2011

Decision to delay until 2011 has little impact on forest industry now.

Russia is again postponing the planned increase of its controversial wood export tariffs reports Helsingin Sanomat.  This time the delay is to extend until 2011. The first to report on the postponement was the financial newspaper Vedomosti, which quoted sources in the Russian civil service in its story.

      The Finnish forest industry has been concerned about Russian plans to impose high tariffs on the export of unprocessed timber. The aim of the move has been to promote the expansion of Russia’s own pulp and paper industry by discouraging the export of the raw material.
     
Wood tariffs were not discussed during a meeting on Tuesday between Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen  and his Russian colleague Vladmir Putin. The Prime Minister’s staff said on Wednesday that the tariffs were not even on the list of topics for discussion drawn up by the Finnish side. 
The issue will be discussed in October when the prime ministers meet again at a forest summit in St. Petersburg. 
The news of the postponement did not come as a surprise. Already last year Russia decided to delay implementation of the tariffs by one year.
     
There was talk during the August visit by the Russian economic development minister of an announcement of a postponement of the increase in the wood tariffs, which was expected within a couple of months. The Russian guest said that preparations for the postponement had already been made. 
The decision to delay the implementation of the hike is linked with the global recession and with relations between Russia and Europe. 
In good times the Finnish forest industry has imported nearly a fifth of the wood that it uses from Russia. Most of the imports are grades of wood that are not used very much in Russia. Finland imported the Russian wood because not enough was available in Finland.
     
Possible decisions by Russia have little bearing on the Finnish forest industry at the moment. Anu Islander of the Finnish Forest Industry Federation, noted that the decision “actually has little significance”.
      “Not really. The only right solution would be no tariffs at all”, she says.
     
The obvious reason for this attitude is that the recession has sharply decreased the Finnish forest industry’s demand for Russian wood.
      “We don’t necessarily need wood right now, but hopefully times will change and capacity of the forest industry will be needed again”, she says.
      Islander says that it seems to be difficult for the Russian government to change decisions that it has once made.

http://www.hs.fi/english/ 

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Russia+postpones+wood+tariffs+again/1135249024514