18.11.2022
This is an essential step to open the market for these products internationally.
The implementation of a national industrialization strategy at the country level cannot be envisaged without also developing a standardization strategy for secondary and tertiary processing products. The decision that has just been taken in Gabon is therefore excellent, and this strategy will have to be associated with actions of popularization, communication and training to be conducted among all stakeholders of the sector.
In fact, the Nouveau Gabon media announced this week that Gabon is looking for a firm to develop a national standardization strategy for secondary and tertiary wood products (see link below), to "contribute to the implementation of the national industrialization strategy by covering priority needs in standards and providing adequate solutions to the challenges related to the development of Gabonese SMEs/SMIs in the wood sector in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
This mission will involve many actors in the sector, in the 2nd and 3rd transformation. As indicated by the media, the mission will aim to define the vision of Gabon in terms of standards to meet the needs of socio-economic sectors, define the strategic axes of standardization, develop the draft national strategy of standardization with a plan of operational actions to implement. The Gabonese Agency for Standardization (Aganor) and the Ministry of Water and Forestry will be trained for a good appropriation of the national strategy of standardization of wood products.
We know that Gabon wishes to intensively develop its wood processing industry, and aims to increase the number of jobs in the sector.
There is still one point on which reflection could be carried out, namely the implementation of "made in Africa" with products that are often of the same type, manufactured for the most part with the same woods or woods with similar technological behavior.
The pooling of efforts at the regional level could be a solution to better promote Central African wood internationally.
Read the announcement in the Nouveau Gabon media
