The Technical Meeting between Ad-Hoc Working Group and European Forest Institute no.1/2016 was held on 26th September 2016 at the RFD meeting room no.1, RFD, There are 42 people attended the meeting.Mr. Sapol Boonsermsook, Director of International Forestry Cooperation Office was a chairman of the meeting. The meeting aimed to discuss on EU comment on the draft LD which has been submitted to EU since 2016, June.
The representative from Thai side, Mr.Banjong Wongsrisoontron, Director of Thai-EU FLEGT Secretariat Office updated FLEGT VPA progress/situation in Thailand into 4 topics as follows;
Legal definition (LD) : Since 2014 to present, Thailand has arranged the AD-Hoc Working Group meetings on LD discussion 11 times, which the latest meeting was held on 24th September 2016, which the final draft nearly complete.
Product Scope (PS) : In 2016, TEFSO has arranged the AD-Hoc working group meeting on Product Scope discussion 2 times, The first draft of Product Scope was adopted by the meeting and was prepared for the first negotiation.
Supply Chain Control (SCC) : the first of AD-Hoc Working Group meetings on supply chain control discussion was held on 30th August 2016, The were 48 people from CSOs, Private sector and Government sector attended the meeting. However, the next meeting will be arranged soon.
Mini-field test of the draft Legality Definition for discussion by the AHWG : The Mini field test of the draft LD was arranged on 22-24 September 2016, which aimed to clarify work ability of verifiers and verification procedures under draft LD. TEFSO under RFD cooperated with European Forest institute (EFI) to arranged the Mini-field test of the draft Legality Definition for discussion by the AHWG to prepare more comprehensive field testing of the complete LD including elements raised in the gap/issue papers.
The representative from EFI, Mr.Sebastian Schrader, updated FLEGT VPA progress/situation in ASEAN that Indonesia will be the first country to export FLEGT licensed timber as from 2016 November, 15.
He also updated that Vietnam nearly complete negotiation on FLEGT VPA and need to conclude the result of the negotiation within this November. However,Vietnam need to be the second country whose engrossed in export FLEGT licensed in the world.
Mr.Sebastian informed the meeting that EU commission is pleased to carry on the first FLEGT VPA negotiation with Thailand, they stated that the recently version of draft LD is nearly complete. There are only a few points which have to revised. EFI representative also stated that, Gap issue paper is still have been interested, he wish to be informed when it has been revised completely.
In addition, EFI representative also reported the general feedback, key findings during field visited to operators and government agencies in one location near Bangkok.
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Draft-ENG-Technical-meeting-between-AD-Hoc-and-EFI-no.1_26-Sep16_PT_IS101916.pdf
