As one of the partner events of The Second Asia-Pacific Forestry Week, Asia-Pacific Forestry Business Forum & Meeting of Outstanding Contributors to Forestry Industry was convened on 11 November 2012. Business Forum attracted over 100 participants from private sector, international organizations and non-governmental organizations.

The Business Forum is aimed to enhance the balancing of economic, societal and environmental interests in regional forestry trade, and provide a platform for participants to exchange experiences with international organizations about pressing issues occur to stakeholders during the implementation of related rules, regulations and ordinance, through presentations and speeches delivered by presenters from prominent Chinese institutes and international organizations, including APFNet, EU-FLEGT Asia Programme, ETTF.

Mr. Lu De from APFNet started the forum by appreciating all the participants’ attendance and emphasizing on the significance of forestry private sector, he said APFNet would put in more effort to facilitate trade of forest products and exchange of information within the region.

Through the presentations made by Mr. Vincent Vandenberk from EFI FLEGT and Ms. Rechel Butler from ETTF, participants gained a comprehensive idea of the European regulations addressing the illegal logging and related legal issues including the introduction and implementation of the milestone regulation, The Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan.

Social responsibility, brand building, quality control and other issues that forestry enterprises has faced were highlighted in the discussion session, entrepreneurs and officials from forestry enterprises and associations were given chance to air their views freely.

The forum closed with concluding remarks made by Mr. Jin Zhonghao from WWF, he reiterated the necessity and significance of the ecological development of forestry enterprises to improve the forestry industry from a regional perspective.

The forum is sponsored by APFNet, with China National Forestry Institute Federation, World Wildlife Found, EFI and China National Forestry Product Industry Association as co-sponsors.