A long campaign by The Timber Trade Federation (TTF) has resulted in HM Revenue & Customs investigating anomalies concerning Malaysian plywood import data.
Field inspectors are visiting plywood importers after the organisation identified errors in recording hardwood plywood as softwood plywood
In anticipation of changes being made to customs data and following information received by TTF members, the TTF has decided to transfer last year’s volumes of Malaysian softwood plywood – 36,000m³ – into the hardwood plywood category.
But TTF head of technical and trade policy Nick Boulton said he was baffled why the wrong declarations were being made, with some Malaysian plywood imports still being declared as softwood plywood in 2009.
“We’re not seeing this softwood plywood product in the market,” he said.
“It might be a mistake through the importer letting a forwarding agent make the declaration on its behalf. But it is the responsibility of the importer to declare the product under the right code.”
He said importers could get into trouble, as wrong declarations, even unintentional ones, constituted a criminal offence.
Mr Boulton said Malaysia had no softwood resources and importing softwood would render the plywood product uneconomical for export.
Rates of duty differ on various imported products, but there is no difference for hardwood and softwood ply – removing any incentive to deliberately declare a false code.
And suggestions that wrong declarations could lead to products qualifying for duty-free under the Coniferous Plywood Quota also seem wide of the mark as they were not declared under the quota.
The TTF has also transferred volumes for Indonesian and Thai softwood plywood declarations, although numbers are small.
