China lifts import ban on logs from Virginia
China has lifted temporarily its year-old ban on imports of logs from Virginia, Governor Bob McDonnell announced, reported The Virginian-Pilot (MCT).
China has agreed to a six-month "pilot project" to import hardwood and softwood from Virginia, beginning June 1, McDonnell's office said. All of the exports "will originate from Norfolk or surrounding ports," Taylor Thornley, a spokeswoman for McDonnell, said.
"It's good news for us," said Joe Harris, a spokesman for the Virginia Port Authority. "We've got to go out and reclaim some of that business. We're confident we're going to do it. It's not going to happen overnight. But some of that business is geographically close to the port, and we think we can get it back in pretty short order."
Earlier this month, Tom Capozzi, a vice-president at Virginia International Terminals, said the port has lost the equivalent of 10,000 containers a year in business because of the ban.
That's equal to less than one percent of the one million containers that went through the port last year.
"In this economy," Harris said, "any containers that you can get, you really work very hard to hold onto."
China initiated the ban in April 2011 after it said it found pests in log shipments from several states. Only logs from Virginia and South Carolina were banned, however.
A month later, McDonnell and the state's agriculture secretary, Todd Haymore, met with officials in Beijing during a trade mission to China to try to reverse the ban. Chinese inspectors recently visited Virginia at their invitation to see how logs are treated.
"It was a pretty quick turnaround from the time the Chinese delegation was here to the time we got the answer," Harris said. "We have the processes in place for fumigation. If it goes well for six months and they don't find any more pests, it could be business as usual."