Considerable progress seen in Thailand's forest management for AEC

BANGKOK, July 7 (TNA) - Thailand's Forest Industry Organisation (FIO), under the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, has announced its considerable progress on long-term forest management, as part of the Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) Plan of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). FIO Deputy Director Pichai Rujirojsuwan told journalists of the progress on Thursday, saying that FIO has taken actions on reforestation to meet the AEC standard under its SFM Plan since 2014 and 24 forest parks in a total area of 94,115.2 acres have already been certified under the SFM Plan. Pichai acknowledged that 19 out of the 24 certified forest parks have been sustainably managed by the public sector and the rest by the private sector in the targeted areas under the supervision of FIO. Pichai revealed that FIO has targeted to increase Thailand's certified forest parks under the AEC's SFM Plan by additional 35 ones during 2017-2019. According to the FIO deputy chief, his agency's management of wood products logistics to boost competitiveness of domestic wood products manufacturers, which has also been launched since 2014, has, in the meantime, been positively responded by a total of 10 public and private factories that have all been certified with the CoC standard to have high potential in competitiveness comparable to world major exporters of wood products, like Myanmar. (TNA)