What is happening at sawmills in Brčko and Pelagićevo: Chinese are massively exporting timber from BiH

(Patria) - At least three sawmills in the Brčko and Pelagićevo area have been leased by Chinese citizens, who are cutting timber there and packing it into containers for further export, i.e., shipment to their home country.

While touring the area, the CAPITAL portal team saw for themselves that timber is being processed in large quantities at these sawmills and exported from BiH, but that each of them has its own policy and a different way of doing business.

At the first sawmill, at the western entrance to Brčko from the direction of Lončari in the village of Plazulje, at the "Elan" sawmill, we found two Chinese citizens and one local worker. We learned from the locals that they rented the sawmill almost a year ago and that they bring logs there to cut timber. The finished semi-finished products, according to the workers, are exported first to Serbia, and then "further".

They were not overly talkative, and what they did say did not align at all with what we saw. They particularly steered the conversation away when we told them we were journalists and were investigating the work of sawmills in this area, and where the timber they cut was being exported.

They Say One Thing, Do Another

One of the two Chinese citizens we found there, most likely the employer or his representative who leased the sawmill and runs the business, knew some Serbian and insisted on a translator.

The other, who said he came from China to work there, knew English better than the first, but not Serbian.

On the office door in front of the sawmill, there were decorations with Chinese symbols for the New Year holidays they celebrate in February. The workers insisted that the company they work for is from Serbia, that its headquarters are in Inđija, but they did not want to say who the owner is or what the company is called.

"Our manager is not here, he is in Serbia, that's where our company headquarters are. He will soon travel to America on business, I don't know when he is returning. I think you can find much larger Chinese sawmills and see how they work. There are two other sawmills operating, and Chinese people are working there for themselves. In Pelagićevo and Orašje. We are just workers here," said Kimi.

At the sawmill in Čović Polje, on the road from Lončari to Orašje, its owner Cvijetin Popović told us that he works for the Chinese, who bring him logs from which he cuts timber. Every time he fills a container, the Chinese employers send trucks and take the timber away.

"I am the owner of the sawmill, and we provide cutting services for a client from China. We are currently cutting ash logs, making timber and some elements for parquet. They export it to China by packing the sawn timber into containers, transporting it by truck to Rijeka in Croatia, and then it goes by ship further to China. They buy timber from private owners from the surrounding area, from our region, but also from Derventa, Srbac, Prijedor, Brčko. There is no limit to the quantity, we process as much as we can, and we pack and ship every time we cut 25 cubic meters. I don't know exactly how much we have cut for them so far. We have been cooperating since May last year. We cut planks and some elements for parquet, for example. We no longer process logs since the ban is in effect," says Popović.

He says that there has been a lot of deception with defective goods to Chinese buyers, especially when it comes to logs that the Chinese previously exported unprocessed directly from BiH.

"There was a lot of that. That's why they decided to cut it here and that it would be more profitable for them than to transport faulty goods to China," says Popović.

They Buy from Everyone and Transport to China

Locals around Brčko and Pelagićevo with whom we spoke say that the Chinese are known as good payers, especially if offered a larger quantity of freshly cut logs.

"They pay for the transport from the forest to the sawmill, and it is important for them to always buy enough logs for a full truck. As far as we know, at the sawmill, they cut the round logs to remove the bark and market them as semi-finished products in containers for China," a local told us, and we also saw crates full of bark in the sawmills.

At the third sawmill at the entrance to Pelagićevo, in the facilities of the former company "Yursik", we had the most luck, because they did not hide at all that it was a Chinese company that buys wood from anyone interested in selling, pays well, cuts it, and then transports it to China. We could barely communicate, as they only knew a few Serbian words, and no English at all. They did not allow us to go further into the sawmill than the entrance and standing in the main yard.

"We work with everyone, we buy from all over Bosnia and transport to China. There is no boss here, he is in China. We are not working today, we work on other days. You cannot go further or film now, because there is no boss," one of the two workers we found there told us.

Brčko Government Empty, Forestry Inspector Dismissed

We tried to get statements about the Chinese sawmills in the Brčko area from the Brčko District Government. However, we did not find anyone to give us a statement, and we learned that employees in the institutions there are not often at work, and that it is very difficult to find them at their workplaces. Also, after several consecutive calls, we could not get a statement from the Brčko inspection.

Ljiljana Zenunović, head of the sub-department for forestry and water management of the Brčko District Government of BiH, with whom we had previously spoken to arrange an interview, did not answer her phone that day, nor did she reply to the message we sent her to remind her.

A few days earlier, while we were arranging a visit and an interview, we learned from her that Brčko does not have a forestry company because Šumarija Brčko has been in liquidation since 2006, and that the forestry inspector has been dismissed from his job. She did not want to reveal to us why or until when, but through an internet search, we saw that forestry inspector Duško Đurić was arrested four years ago for "requesting and accepting money not to stop the felling and transport of timber assortments and not to take other measures for which he was authorized as the competent inspector in the District".

As the Brčko Prosecutor's Office announced at the time, Đurić is accused of demanding and taking 700 euros and then 500 marks from individuals who were felling trees without the necessary permits and procedures. He was arrested as part of the "Drvosječa" (Lumberjack) operation, and an indictment for the criminal offense of accepting gifts and other benefits was soon filed.

Zenunović explained to us that the Chinese lessees do not approach them for permits at all.

"They do not approach us at all for any approval. We do not have industrial logging, we only do private forests and supply the population with firewood. The department issues permits for logging in private forests. We manage the district's forests, and the owners manage private forests. There are about 3,000 hectares of state forests, and we only carry out sanitary logging for the supply of individuals," she said in a telephone conversation.