Vietnam's forestry industry maintained a good upward momentum before July, but the continuous emergence of new coronal variant viruses disillusioned Vietnam, which had expected to survive the epidemic slowly and grow steadily.

Affected by delta virus, the number of confirmed cases in Vietnam is rising. Novel coronavirus pneumonia cases in Vietnam reached 10811 on August 24th -25, according to information provided by the Ministry of health, which is the latest sixth consecutive day in Vietnam.

In order to control the further spread of the epidemic, Ho Chi Minh City implemented strict epidemic prevention measures as early as early as July, including restricting citizens' travel, suspending non essential services and most public transport, and announced on August 15 that the measure was extended to September 15, so as to control the epidemic in the region before September 15.

Therefore, from 0:00 on the 23rd, Ho Chi Minh City will implement the most stringent "three on-site" (on-site production, on-site dining and on-site accommodation) isolation and control measures since the outbreak of the epidemic. Except for the 31 special groups allowed by the regulations, all citizens will not go out. The food distribution of nearly 10 million people will be taken over by the army, police and government epidemic prevention and control team. The vast majority of enterprises in the southern industrial areas around Ho Chi Minh City are in the state of shutdown, and many enterprises have been overwhelmed.

In addition to Hu Zhiming, the Vietnamese government said in August 26th that Vietnam would deploy troops to its main manufacturing center in Pingyang Province, Southeast Asia, to help curb the estimated 50 thousand new cases of COVID-19 infection in the next two weeks.

Due to the influence of the delta virus, the "three in situ" segregation policy in Vietnam's timber industry has caused the Vietnamese timber industry to face problems such as blocked timber processing and product exports. About 65% of the workers in the industry are unable to work because of COVID-19, Hu Zhiming and Nai. Pingyang and Xining are the three major wood and forest products processing and export centers in Vietnam. 134 wood processing enterprises have stopped production due to the emergence of new crown cases and the inability to implement the "three in place" (local production, local dining and local accommodation) policy.

Before the implementation of the isolation policy, there were 265 wood processing enterprises and 119300 employees in the three key areas of wood and forest products processing and export in Vietnam. Up to now, there are only 131 enterprises in operation with 30700 employees, of which the direct production staff accounts for only 20% - 40% of the total number. The production capacity is low, the transaction is almost paralyzed, and the delivery time is constantly delayed.

At the same time, in the production process, enterprises still need to import raw materials, auxiliary materials, packaging and other production necessities, and also need to go through import and export procedures in administrative departments such as banks, customs, seaports and so on. Employees are faced with very high risk of infection. The cost of rapid testing is 3 days / times, and the cost of PCR testing is 7 days / times. Therefore, thousands of financial workers need to be tested by COVID-19. This undoubtedly increases the operation cost of enterprises, resulting in a sharp decline in corporate income. In the long run, many enterprises have to suspend production or even consider bankruptcy.

Vietnam timber and Forest Products Association (vivorest) proposed that the government allow associations and enterprises to purchase vaccines and vaccinate workers free of charge. At the same time, the Ministry of industry and trade is required to include the raw materials required by the wood processing industry in the list of necessities to avoid the complete stagnation of production due to the omission or misunderstanding of local application process in the circulation of raw materials.

In the first July of 2021, Vietnam's exports of wood, wood products and non wood forest products were estimated to be US $1472 million. In the cumulative seven months, the export of forest products was US $10.25 billion, a year-on-year increase of 55%. Among them, the export of wood and wood products reached US $9.576 billion, an increase of 55%; In 2020, the export of non timber forest products reached US $686 million, a year-on-year increase of 58.3%. From January to July, forestry realized a trade surplus of 8455 billion US dollars.

Vietnam has surpassed China to become the largest furniture supplier of the United States. At the same time, Vietnam's timber exports to France and Europe have great room for growth. Vietnam is still the sixth largest wooden furniture supplier in France, but it only accounts for 4.5% of the total import value of European countries. At present, Vietnam's key wood processing bases are facing three major crises: loss of workers, loss of orders and loss of capital. The severe epidemic situation also makes many international investors take a wait-and-see attitude towards Vietnam's business.