Tag: eu-timber-regulation

Despite EU sanctions, cash-hungry Myanmar military offers to accept Euros in upcoming teak auction.

Despite trade sanctions imposed in June to ban imports of Myanmar teak into Europe, more than 300 tonnes of the ‘king of woods’ worth well over €2 million has since entered into Italy, the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) can reveal

Myanmar’s violent military junta is tomorrow (16 September) poised to hold one of two massive auctions of illicit timber to replenish its coffers; the second is due to take place on 30 September.

Italy has been exposed at the heart of an ongoing trade in illicit timber from Myanmar, in defiance of both EU trade regulations and sanctions imposed in response to the violent military coup earlier this year

A German company has been convicted for evading sanctions on Myanmar timber from 2008-11, when the previous military junta –the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) – was sanctioned by the EU

With grave concern that the profits from Myanmar timber exports are going into the pockets of the military junta responsible for the country’s ongoing violent coup, new analysis has now identified a pattern of timber tax evasion by exporting companies