An Analysis of Forestry Companies’ Willingness to Pay for Forest-certified Timber

The purpose of this research is to carry out an analysis of the business’s perception against non-tariff barriers to the timber trade, the impact on the Act of Legal Timber Trade Promotion, and estimate the willingness to pay off the forest certified-timber for legality certification acquisition. We conducted an interview survey targeting representatives or managers between June 12~September 30, 2018. The samples for the survey were allocated to 140 units in the metropolitan area, 30 units in the Gyungsang area, 30 units in the Chungcheong/Jeonra area, considering the proportion based on the registered companies as timber production. To summarize the main results, 66.2% of the surveyed companies in the importation of timber answered that they faced problems concerning the recognition and responses of non-tariff barriers. Regarding the areas for the national response, 60.7% of respondents pointed to ‘precise technical regulatory information’ and 60.2% to ‘provision of solutions for technical regulations.’ As for the instrument to be recognized as legality in case of a restriction on illegal timber trade among the number of measures to obtain legalization was harvesting permits (58.2%) and the acquisition of forest-related certification(FSC, PEFC) (57.2%). Regarding the estimation of payments for the recognition of timber legality, 24.4% of respondents representing additional costs to purchase forest-certified wood as a means of obtaining legality of timber pay additional costs approximately average WTP ￦28,059/㎥, Truncated WTP ￦13,188/㎥, Median WTP ￦28,428/㎥ using DBCV. This result could be useful as policy-making against NTB in timber-related business. As well, it is necessary to make an advertisement of the instrument for reducing adverse effects before implementing the new institution.