Vietnam's wood-processing industry is facing a big problem : over the past 50 years unchecked logging and the effects of war and human settlement have left Vietnam with very little wood. In 1995, the last year for which statistics are available, the total natural forest area was just only 8m hectares, or about 24 per cent of the country's total land area. This year, the government is officially allowing the logging of 300,000 cubic metres of timber from natural forest areas, against the cutting rate of 3m-4m cu m seen in the early 1990s.