Is a privileged group taking advantage of state-owned wood?

Letterbox companies already purchasing wood assortments

Demand for timber from Slovenian state forest is high. Foto: Pixabay

Bidders at a recent sale of timber owned by Slovenian State Forests whose bids have been unsuccessful despite higher offers, bitterly suggest that freeloaders seem to have already found their market niche.

The state-owned Slovenian State Forests company (SiDG) had carried out its first two-round sale of 700,000 m3 of timber. In the first round, SiDG issued a call for all interested parties to submit their bids, which was followed by a possibility to improve their offers in the second round. Demand exceeded supply nine times, and out of 250 interested parties contracts were signed with 146 bidders.

A key but not sole criterion of the selection was the highest offered price. However, dealers who sell timber abroad were particularly interested, explains Miha Marenče, acting manager of SiDG: "We wanted to reserve 40 per cent to take into account what the subsequent processing in these companies would be and what their credit standing was."

From Slovenian forests directly to foreign markets
More than 100 bidders who failed to sign a contract has a different view on the matter. The fact that a state-owned company has sold timber to some bidders at a lower price than the unselected bidders, has convinced the latter that they are not on the list of privileged political friends. Therefore, they warn that this system of sale has enabled corruptive practices.

According to our unofficial information, freeloaders have already managed to glue themselves to the state forestry company by founding a letterbox company that sells timber from Slovenian state-owned woods to Austria and Italy, where the prices are higher, through two intermediary companies. All of them take a certain margin although the timber actually gets transported directly from the forest to the buyer across the border.

Keeping good business relation
SiDG refuses to reveal who the buyers of state timber are. According to Marenče, the company is not trying to hide anything: "It's simply that this is part of a business process, of relations between partners, so it's only fair that these matters are insured in such a way."
Since there is not enough timber from state forests to cover all the needs of Slovenian wood-related industries, SiDG suggests Slovenian buyers of timber should also turn to private forest owners.

A. Č., Jernejka Drolec, Radio Slovenija; translated by K. Z.