Who is affected?
All exporters of these wood products to South Korea:
- wood fuel pellets (4401.31)
- logs (4403)
- sawn timber, including preservative treated timber, fire retardant treated timber and laminated timber (4407)
- plywood (4412).
Documents Korea will accept
Certificates that meet the new Korean requirements are those issued by the:
- FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)
- PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification).
If you don't have FSC or PEFC certification, you'll need to meet the requirements detailed below.
The new requirements – what to do differently
Exporters
- Log exporters need to request levy statements from all the forest or commodity owners who supply logs to them for Korea.
- Wood products exporters (like sawn timber or panels) will need to provide their Korean importer with levy statements for each sales order or lot, from the forest owners who supplied the wood in that lot.
Forest owners or managers
- Forest owners or managers may be requested to provide a levy statement by the exporter of their wood products.
- Forest owners/managers who are invoiced the Harvested Wood Material Commodity Levy by Levy Systems are eligible to request a levy statement. Each Statement costs $65.00 plus GST, and is valid for 12 months.
Request a statement – Levy Systems Limited
How do sawmills know which levy statements to provide?
- By default, the statements for all of the log suppliers for a mill should be provided.
- The statements provided should be based on what is appropriate for each sawmill considering their rate of throughput and the turnover of their log suppliers.
- If a mill processes in batches, or can otherwise trace log inputs to the final product delivered to Korea, then the only statements for the batch of the sales order/lot need to be provided.
- When any new log suppliers start, their statements should then be included with the sales documentation.
What about forestry products from native forests?
No new steps are required. Exporters will need to provide their Notice of Intention to Export Indigenous Timber form, or a Notice of Intention to Export Swamp Kauri form.