20 May 2021 – The ad-hoc working group met through the Zoom application to assess the current progress of the FLEGT VPA drafting. The working group had a final deliberation round of Annex V Thai Timber Legality Assurance System (THA-TLAS), Annex VI Thai Supply Chain Control, and Annex VII Public Disclosure of Information.

Through the collaboration between stakeholders and the government sector headed by the Royal Forest Department, FLEGT VPA drafting and Negotiation steadily advances with three out of eleven concluded by Thailand and the European Union on a technical level. To expedite the annex development, the working group aims to submit five annexes – Product Scope, THA-TLAS, Thai Supply Chain Controls, Public Disclosure of Information, and FLEGT Licensing Scheme, to the discussion table with the EU this year.

The working group reviewed the THA-TLAS and Thai Supply Chain Controls annexes. Several outstanding issues, such as the institutional and regulatory developments for THA-TLAS implementation, have been improved.

At this meeting, the working group also went over the Guidelines for Declaring the Legality of Timber from Private Land. After the lifting of timber on private land regulation, the harvest, and transportation of such timber is no longer controlled by law. The guideline will instruct timber owners on various options to assure the legality of timber source, timber, and record the transportation to the next supply chain point.

The Public Disclosure of Information annex that the sub-working group has started drafting in January 2021, is also ready for the conclusion. The annex lays out a list of information that Thailand has to distribute, such as the FLEGT VPA agreement, Thai timber information, and regulation to improve transparency in the timber sector and ensure that the operators are well-informed on the Thai timber legal compliance and the impact monitoring organizations have sufficient data to evaluate the FLEGT VPA implementation.

The FLEGT VPA sub-committee meeting and the FLEGT VPA National Committee will be held next month to endorse these annexes preparing for the Thailand-EU Negotiation. The last negotiation saw a major achievement. For the first time, Thailand and the EU were able to set aside three annexes. This year’s negotiation, which will be held in September, will be another milestone towards agreement signing.