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According to the latest modular report of the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Independent Market Monitoring (IMM), the EU's demand for tropical timber will be very strong from January to March 2022. These timber products mainly come from Indonesia (with FLEGT license) and other countries that have signed voluntary cooperation agreements (VPAs) with the EU.

The latest trade survey report of IMM on the major tropical timber consuming countries in the EU shows that the enterprises have made a good start in 2022. Although logistics problems persist and prices remain high, in the first quarter, the main EU markets monitored by IMM reported strong demand. In the first quarter of 2022, VPA partner countries' international trade exports to the EU increased by 36% compared with the same period in 2021, reaching 854 million dollars; The export volume of international trade increased by 20% year on year, reaching 368000 tons.

The FLEGT licensed timber and wood products imported from Indonesia by the EU increased to USD 288 million in the first quarter; The import volume of international trade from the Netherlands increased to 79 million US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 15%; The import volume of international trade from Germany exceeded 50 million US dollars, up 8% year on year; The volume of international trade imports from Belgium reached 37 million US dollars, up 15% year on year. Against the background of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the global economic downturn, respondents in the IMM survey said that tropical timber trade may slow down within the year; At the same time, some European enterprises are also worried about the future.

As IMM is a monitoring platform funded by the European Union and managed by the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), the operation of the platform will end in December 2022. To this end, IMM convened a stakeholder consultation meeting to assess the stakeholders' views on the project implementation, work quality and scope of operation, as well as the need to continue to operate such independent market monitoring in the future.

The participants said that it is necessary to continue to play the role of IMM to monitor the trade situation of tropical and VPA partner countries and the views of the EU market on FLEGT and FLEGT licensing. In addition, stakeholders also suggested that how to further develop such monitoring could be discussed. They believed that, with the increasing global attention to the legitimacy and sustainability of wood, and the increasing value of wood as a low-carbon material resource, such monitoring would provide important reference information for public policy decisions and business strategic layout of government and private sectors.