Experts from the wood-processing industry: Timber middlemen are staging the protest

“The big fight was over the issue that whoever logs timber should be able to sell it and act as re-seller,” explained the reason for the protests of companies from the industry staged yesterday in the capital, Yuri Mikov, Director of the Northwest State Enterprise, at the press conference of the six state-owned forestry companies.
According to him, in most places in the country, one cubic meter of wood is worth about BGN 36 or BGN 42, VAT added. "Private companies buy the timber for BGN 30 and then sell it at an average price of BGN 65. I can safely say that in 92% of the cases there is no invoice for the difference. Thus, a grey economy is being produced hourly and this practice should be terminated," said Mikov. "We do everything possible to bring this activity into the open and the new Forestry Act is one of the tools for that," he added and reminded that all participants in the process opposed the sales via a commodity exchange. "In 2008, we again tried to sell timber via the commodity exchange. Then, all timber would have been traded on the stock exchange. But, at that time, there was just one company dealing with timber sales, now there are six. The commission of this company was 1% and now the commission of those six is 0.2%," said Mikov.

“Last year, a new Forestry Act was passed. Six state-owned enterprises were set up under it, which operate 90% of the forests in the country. The purpose of these companies is maximum profits with minimum means and minimum infringements," said Alexander Yolev, Director of the Southwest State Enterprise - Blagoevgrad. He pointed out that the accusations against the state-owned enterprises on the part of private companies in the timber and wood-processing industry are groundless. So far, the State has had no commercial gain from the forests, while, in 2011, all six state-owned forest enterprises recorded profits,” explained Yolev.

Прочети цялата новина

Свързани новини: